Zoning & Planning Committee - October 27, 2025

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and let's see we're joined also by several members of the planning board and our city solicitor, associate city solicitor Andrew Lee, Mr. Dorringer is here and Let's see, who else?

Yeah, I'm seeing that.

We're joined by Drew Wilson, our new city clerk and clerk of the council. We welcome you to your First meeting virtually. I understand he's going to attend land use in person tomorrow night. But he's going to join us for a little while. And we're delighted to have you. Mr. Wilson, would you like to? Anything to the committee? We're just delighted to have you.

I certainly don't want to slow the meeting down. I know it's 7 o'clock at night, but I just want to let all of you know that I haven't seen in the building yet how excited I am to be your new city clerk and excited to get going today. Looking forward to seeing all of you all in person soon. Certainly no later than next Monday night.

Thank you very much and stay for as long as you can and then we will see you more later. I'm also joined by Councilor Malakie, not a member of the committee, but welcome. So our first item and as a commissioner, yes. There he is. Even closer. Come to the table, please. We've been joined by Councilor Wright, a member of the committee from Ward 3. This is item 2324, which is an update on the short-term rental ordinance compliance and enforcement. It's a long document, so I won't read it in the interest of time. I think we have had this conversation before, but we wanted to find out what progress you made and what you had to report to us.

Right? So, as we're aware, there's about 200 registered SDIs on the state register. Currently, we have 14 registered and moved. Out of that 14, we have six that are in violation, going through either ads or bedrooms that we found as we were looking through and making sure that they're still in compliance. We have actually sent out 17 violations recently to other STIs that we've found out. Not through complaints. Complaints have been very quiet. Very little complaints have been made. So we would look through the ads and we would look and see if we could find some that were in violation.

So we've sent out 17 violations and we're in the process of waiting for about a 35-day time period to go through before we start issuing tickets to them if they don't come into compliance.

So just to clarify, the 17 are ones in addition to the others? Yeah. Okay. And does that mean they're also not registered with the state?

Yeah, they are registered with the state, but they're not registered with the state.

But the first group you were talking about were people of those who were registered with the state. With the state in the city. They're registered with the city in the state. Okay, so there are another 17 beyond that. Beyond that. Who have registered with the state?

And not with the city.

And not with the city. Correct. And then do we pick up any who are not registered either place?

No, we have a file.

Wright. Questions from members of the committee? Councilor Wright.

I started a list, too, and I've just been really busy lately, so I'm going to forward it to you about other addresses and that. So the ones that are out of compliance, and there have been some troublesome ones in Ward 1 and also Ward 3, have you actually shut them down? And how long does that take?

Again, that's usually shutting them down. What we have been doing, like I said, we've written violation letters to cease and desist. And that brought them to come in. and try and register. We won't register them until they take their ads down. So it's sort of a cat and mouse thing. So we're giving them 35 days. to come in compliance, meaning to take the ads down, not be in violation. so they can register with the city.

But like these ones, I'm thinking, I forget what street it is.

Lincoln.

Lincoln. They have separate apartments, which we don't allow or only allow for three months of the year. And they're doing it. Full-time.

So have you sent any of those into ISD?

Oh, that has been with ISD for a while. Is this 12-14 Lincoln?

Address, I'm not sure.

Why don't you look, I noticed that, thanks to Mr. Heifer, Mr. Lee, you have your hand up.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did want to just tack on a little something after the commissioner of ISD spoke. which is, I think it's very important for the committee and everyone else here to remember that we amended the short-term rental ordinance just last year. Prior to the amendment, to put it frankly, ISD was struggling with enforcement. We were getting the runaround from the operators of the short-term rental when we tried to go after the owner. The way that ordinance was drafted, the owner simply said, well, it wasn't me. I'm not the one posting this. And we really had no recourse against them. A couple minor changes, but very, very impactful changes were done by this committee in May of 2024. One of them made it so that if there's a violation, if there's an ad for the short-term rental, the owner is responsible. also only the owner could be the one that actually operates a short-term rental. It can't be a leasee, it cannot be a licensee, it can't be anyone in possession.

So it really made it so that we had a very direct line to find the person that's responsible. I think the commissioner can speak to this. That was a tremendous change that made it much more effective when we sent a violation notice because we weren't getting the runaround anymore. Then we were able to go directly to the owner and say, no, you are responsible. It does not matter who else you're saying did this because this is your property. And that's been very effective. Also, before when we had the notices that were online themselves, it was hard to kind of, again, find who was responsible, who we're going to be going after. We've simplified that by making it so that the registration notice that's issued by ISD has to be posted there. So it's very easy to find someone who's out of compliance just by looking at the notice. If you don't see the registration number, they're in violation. And then ISD was able to easily take the next steps.

The reason I'm explaining all of this, and this is probably should have been a precursor to the commissioner's explanation, which is we are living in a slightly different compliance world than we were before and a better one, because again, The violations and the enforcements that were happening prior to the amendments, we were working hard on them, but they weren't as effective because we didn't have the clear line to who was responsible and then able to, as Councilor Wright put it, shut them down. Now we're able to do that. And I think the commissioner in his presentation, what he was trying to show was that, yes, we have these numbers of of operators that we're aware of, and then all of the ones that we've received notices of that are in violation. With these amendments, we've been able to effectively enforce the ordinance against them. So I just think that that's important background for the committee to recall.

And the last thing that I will mention, we should probably refrain from talking about specific properties, but if councillors do have questions about specific properties, please feel free to reach out to either the commissioner or myself offline. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Lee, appreciate that. I'm gonna recognize several councilors, but before I do, Commissioner, do you wanna add anything to what was said?

Well, just as a property that Councilor Wright was talking about, We have taken care of that one. Okay. A while ago.

Okay, good.

Okay. So let me recognize first, Councilor Albright. I want to indicate also that Councilor Farrell has joined us online. and have I missed anyone else who is a member? I think I got Councilor Malakie. Okay. All right.

Councilor Roberts. On the 17 that are registered with the state and not with us, and you've been dealing with them are are they are you are they coming into compliance are they working on it or are they they're working on it they're they still have some time left on their cease and desist letter

35 days has passed. If they have some compliance, we will start issuing tickets. And once we start issuing tickets, if they Do you then want to come into compliance? They will have to pay the ticket before registering.

Are there any of them that are renting out the whole property?

Some.

So that's a total violation.

Well, it could be, but it might not be, depending upon how many bedrooms there are and how many people they're renting to. Typically, when we look at the ad, we'll see how many people they're renting to. It'll tell you the available bedrooms that are there and how many people it will hold.

Don't we have to have owner occupancy?

The owner has to occupy the premises for nine months out of the year. They don't have to be there when they rent. Some Airbnbs do have the owners there. While they rent out a room, that's also common.

But if you're saying that they don't have to be there, I mean, the whole point was that we don't want to lose lots of properties to short-term rentals, right? So are you checking to be sure that They're there for nine months of the year? Or are they, you know...

I think that they're there for nine months out of the year. It's very difficult for us to actually Check up on them if they're going to be there nine months out of the year.

It seems like a little loophole there.

Well, yes.

There's some people, I think.

I'm sorry. I just want to recognize Councilor Kalis to join us. I don't want to leave him out of the picture. He's not on the screen. I'm so focused on trying to make sure all the people on the screen. I didn't mean to. But I can't forget, but would you yield to your colleague for a follow-up?

Yeah, so some of them, which we've looked at too, the short-term rentals, the owners have like three or four in the city. so which they're not living in all those places at once so that's another I mean They're trying to get around us.

That's the ones that we have registered, though.

Okay.

Okay. That may be some others that you may be looking at, but not the ones that we have registered. And if we do find that they are, then what commonly happens when we find out when people try to register, They own a two-family home. And they say, well, I live in the home and I rent out this unit. We said, we can't do that. You have to live in that unit and you have to rent that out. So you can either rent that out as a over, not a short-term rental, or as you know for over 30 days and that would be fine and you can then rent out the unit that you live in upstairs or downstairs whatever it is. We have that that's a common rejection that we find when they try to apply.

Let me put Councilor Oliver on the list, but Councilor Goetz, you're next.

The only quick question I have is about this violation record. and it seems to be that you're going to be it's not going to be a public record right so it's not something that we're going to be able to access and quickly check so it would mean we'd have to get in touch with ISD in order to be able to like You know, sort of touch base and, you know, find out the status of the properties? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, you're not going to be able to find it on any of the...

It's not going to show up on there?

Correct.

Okay. Correct. Okay. Yeah, that's all I wanted to ask.

Okay. Councilor Danberg?

Thank you. If we find a situation like the one that Councilor Wright is describing where we know that they own multiple units multiple addresses and they can't possibly be living in all of them for nine months of the year. What do we do about that?

Well, we want to make sure that the address that they're talking about that may be being used as a short-term rental is the actual one that they live in. I mean, people who own multiple homes. So that would be the first thing we'd find out. Ask some questions if you want.

And if we have evidence that the other, let's say they own four, and the other three of them are advertised in local media, What's our recourse? Our request was only enforcement. Okay. And have we shut any down yet?

Yeah, I can tell you when you've shut. Two, three, four, six, seven, eight. 12 down. Out of the 200, okay, 48 of the Chanterelles that have been removed were have been removed, were even registered, have been sent a cease and desist order, or they continue to operate and we're waiting for that 35-day period to expire before we start issuing tickets or maybe they come into compliance with them.

If they don't come into compliance, Is there a pattern to the Are there any other reasons why they don't come into components?

I'd like to think there would be, but I don't know why they don't want to come into components, if that's the case. A lot of these are operated by other people that don't own it, which they can do. Still, the owner is responsible, which has a very lead-out statement. is a big help for us in doing that enforcement because we just go right to the owner. We really don't care who's operating. The owner can then deal with the operator who's taking care of the property for them and we either

How many media do we tend to monitor?

I mean the big ones are the VRBO and of course Airbnb. VRBO posts a state registration number on their sites. So if we look through that, we can cross-reference that with the state

Well, that's all for me. And thank you very much for coming in and talking to us about this. And I think we're Learning the steps that we need to take slowly but surely. It seems like if you shut down 12, that's good news. Yeah, and hopefully there'll be more.

Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of quick questions. If there are more, but if I heard correctly, there are more short-term rental properties listed with the state in Newton than are registered in Newton. In other words, they're unregistered, right? Does the state do some sort of monitoring, trying to keep tabs on, keeping people, I don't know. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. I'm curious because it is interesting to me that they would register with the state but not the city. So there's got to be something going on there.

I believe, too, a lot of these that are in the city now probably don't even realize they have to register.

Fair enough.

Sure, that could be totally reasonable.

Yeah.

But I'm just thinking, well, you know, I can do this, I can do that and rent these out when I'm out of town and, you know, it shouldn't be a problem. Got it. But they have to be registered.

So I want to recognize Councilor Krintzman who's got his hand up.

Sorry, just one second, Josh. So then, right. You had also mentioned that the pathway to identifying additional short-term rental properties in the city is probably through complaints or people saying, hey, what's going on across the street, around the corner, whatever. And you were saying that I'm actually kind of surprised that that's not happening. The complaints? Yeah. But you're not getting any?

Yeah, I'm not getting any. Great. OK. The ones that we were getting were the ones that we squashed Sure. It was at the 12 or 14, I said that. Yeah, the one on, yeah, that one. Yeah, that all happened when- And then it was the other one on that other road. Yeah, yeah, that was part of that one. That was part of the changes like Council Lee was saying that the Council had made to make sure it would be easier for us to enforce, particularly against the owner, which has made it much easier or more efficient. Fantastic.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Let me go to Councilor Krintzman.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just I think a quick question or clarification. When you say shut them down, What does that mean? Because I know we can sort of find under the ordinance, but what is it, Commissioner Ciccarello, what does that mean to have shut down a short-term rental? They are no longer renting as short-term rentals. because of some enforcement action that the city took, or? I'm just trying to understand the problem. I think it's great. I just, I don't know what it means.

They mutually agreed not to. continued operation. And most of those homes were owned by the same people. So they had several homes that we we located that they were owners at and then we had brought them in talked to them at the counter and said you know you really can't be doing this you know we're going to stop finding you if you continue and they decided not to

Okay, okay, so they're not under a legal prohibition from operating. It's that they have decided that compliance with the ordinance is They're unable to comply with the ordinance for some reason. They don't have interest in it and would rather not operate a short-term rental.

Right. It was that same question that was asked earlier. that they couldn't be in compliance. They would have to only have one in the city. Right. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Yeo, our Chief Operating Officer had a point to add.

Quickly. One thing to remember is that we've now started this program to allow finding directly of these situations. So on top of the enforcement work. We're getting a little bit more teeth into this. And then I think programs and services recently, Chair, Mr. Chair, passed a home rule petition for going forward to allow us to put liens on property where pet fines are not paid. We're adding some teeth in here along the way. So money usually, as we're finding with leaf blowers, usually does the trick, not all the time. But there are some, I don't know, Councilor, Lee could explain some of our other tricks, but we're hopeful that these tools are going to get us to compliance.

I've got several people who've spoken, but I want to recognize someone who hasn't yet, if you don't mind. Councilor Malakie.

Thank you. I didn't catch at the beginning. I think Mr. Ciccarello said how many we have registered in the city. How many is that?

14.

I'm sorry, one four or four zero?

Yeah, 14.

Only 14 are registered. That seems unbelievably low. Given what you find when you do an Airbnb, for example, search. Is there, I'm looking on the website, there used to be a list of the ones that were registered and I cannot find that list. Is that available on the website? You should have that list in your head. If I'm a person like a resident checking on the website, on the page about short-term rental information, There's a line that says short term rental registrations issued, but there's nothing below it. And then there's stuff about, you know,

applications are submitted here possibly it wasn't uh wasn't updated it's been on there recently but we'll we'll check on that yeah okay um and and

Basically, it sounds like you have no way to find unregistered by the state short-term rentals because it's you have to be it's you gotta be pretty investigative to try so you're kind of basically doing what Pam and I occasionally do late at night and We're all through the list.

When we have time.

Yeah. Same with us.

We see how they spend their late nights. Sounds like fun.

And I would say quickly that AI, there's some challenges with AI, but this is an example of where now AI, there's some building somewhere that is generating as quickly information where if you have a photo of a property, you can... Pretty quickly figure out where that photo is, where it actually is located. So we're using that.

Okay, so and the The complaints, so there have been no complaints at all in, say, the last year?

Not since we got rid of those 12 or 14 troublesome ones.

High volume, yeah, the very visible ones.

Yep.

Okay, yeah, well, I hope the... I hope the AI approach or whatever will produce some results because...

It has. Like I said, it takes a little time, but... You know, once we get the ones that we're working on now, these 17, we'll open up another string and see what we can find out of them and just keep knocking them down.

Okay, thank you. And what is the amount of the fine? How much total have we collected in fines?

We haven't collected anything in fines.

because none of them have reached the 35 days.

We just started this program trying to with D17 to issue them a cease and desist after 35 days If they're still in violation, we will start writing tickets. We can write those tickets daily at $300 a ticket and $300 a day. We have to write tickets every day for this particular type of fund. It doesn't accumulate like a zoning violation does, where it's just a by day by day increments.

Well, the other home rule petition that we approved applying for was to increase maximum fines from 300 to, I guess it's 2000. Not that we would have to go all the way, but it seems like the rentals on some Airbnbs, they could make more in a day than the fine.

Malakie. That's a comment, Councilor Malakie. I think we've had some discussion before you joined. Okay, thank you. Bring it back to the committee. But before I do, Commissioner, You've outlined a number of things here that may benefit from just a supplemental memo from you when we're done in response to some of the questions that you've heard that could be attached to the report. That would, I think, help. just to add to the information you've already provided. Now, let me go back to, I think I had Danberg, Albright, and then Wright again.

The 12 that are now shut down, do you know whether those 12 have turned into or gone into inventory as long-term rentals?

I would imagine that they would have, but I can't guarantee that.

Yeah, because that's one of the goals that we have. Increase housing for that I think would be a good statistic to find out if you can ever do a follow-up on that. Are there any, oh first of all, Leans. That is a great idea that we have been able to have them go to Lean. Are there any other Are there any categories of violation in ISD that you can put a lien on a home for?

Well, currently we can't. We're waiting for that to go through.

So do we need to, does the City Council need to detail exactly what we want the lien to be able to be put on for. Do we have to name every violation?

Can I speak to that please? Lee, Attorney Lee. Well, he's councilor. S-O-L-O-R.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I can answer Councilor Danberg's question. So really what you're talking about is an authority the city doesn't have yet. As the chair mentioned, we were over at P&S the other week, well it was the last Wednesday, and they had approved the authorization for the mayor to file special request for special legislation with the state. that will allow two things. One is increase the amount of a fine of up to $2,000 and then also to use a lien on a property for outstanding fines. And to answer your question directly, with regards to the lien, that doesn't happen automatically. Let's just say that the city council approves that, the mayor then files it with the state and the state approves it and the city then has the ability to lien a property for outstanding fines. At that point, the city council in conjunction with the mayor is gonna have to amend the ordinance to identify exactly which violations can be leaned.

Okay. Okay, thank you. And question two, The head of ISD, are there any changes that we as a city council or we as zoning planning then to the city council could make to help you with your enforcement?

Right now, I think the changes that were made last year are helping a lot. I'd probably leave it alone for a bit, unless we come up with some other issues that I'm a little confused on the numbers.

I have numbers 217 and 14 in my head. What is 200?

202 registered with the state.

The state?

That are in Newton.

That are in Newton? Yes. and of the 200, how many are registered with the city?

14.

So we have a long way to go.

We do.

Okay, I didn't quite catch that the first time.

But a lot of it too is stopping the ones, out of those 202, A lot of our duplicates, same addresses over and over again. If you check down the list, there are many of them that have the same address, which for whatever reason, I don't know, maybe they registered two or three times. But a lot of them have the same addresses, which are duplicates. And let's see.

And what's the 17?

The 17 are the most recent violations. that was sent out to cease and desist. They're not registered in the city. We've told them they need to be registered in the city and told them, hey, you have to stop all your ads, remove everything. And within that time period, that 35 days, You can come, you know, when they come and apply at the city, we'll check and make sure that all their ads are down and have them apply and see if we can get more registered.

So are you doing this a chunk at a time? So that's the 17, and then when that's dealt with, you'll take another 17.

Yeah, or 10, or whatever we can do.

OK. So it's going to take a while to get through that list. Everything takes time. What do you think? Is it a year? Is it six months? What is it?

I would say more than a year.

More than a year?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

I'm trying, yes. Yeah. Also remember that there are compliance issues that then come up. Yeah. So even the ones that are registered.

Yeah.

We have six that are not compliant with the registration. So we have to go back and check with them too.

And I assume that over the year that you're getting after the rest of the 200, there'll be other things happening. So you have to keep up with that as well.

Let me, Councilor Wright, can I ask a question? Commissioner, it does seem to me that if you've got 200 that you know in Newton are registered with the state, but not registered with the city, and if you can somehow exclude the duplicates. Shouldn't the lender go out to at least everybody right away and say you have to register with the city? It's not a violation, but their ordinance basically says you've got to register with the city.

The ones that are registered with the state, not all are actually renting at this time. So basically what we're looking for are the ones who will break the rules.

Right, but isn't it a useful sort of preemptive act? to communicate with everybody and say, look, if you're in the state register and you're in the city of Newton, you have to register with us if you're operating. It just seems to me that that would be a relatively low cost. Right. and get some compliance in advance rather than wait for a violation.

We can look into that. You never know, some might come in and... Out of these 17, we're getting a lot of them coming in and saying, we didn't realize, we didn't know.

That's why I think the other is important because as our colleagues have pointed out, The purpose of this is to keep these properties available for regular rental, not have them diverted into the short-term rental stock. And so to the extent that you can reach out to everybody, that you have at least the names or the addresses for it. seems to me and say this is the new ordinance. Notice that there is a violation that goes to the property owner. It just seems to me that that would be a prudential way of increasing your enforcement reach without a lot of effort on individual cases. But sorry, apologies.

That's okay. So, Councilor Danberg asked my question is, is there anything else that we can do to make your job easier? One of the things that I'm doing because I'm not even looking at it. I go on Airbnb and if they have a picture of the front of the house, it's really easy to get an address. But if they don't, I look out the window, see what it is. You got an area, go on Google, trying to figure it out. I mean it takes a long time to come up with an address and that's what I'm doing to find those.

Sometimes you can use interior pictures and then search realtor sites. and then get the others that way. AI can do a lot of that for you.

Yeah. It's nice. When I was doing a lot of volunteer work for the Historical Society, I learned that in the 1930s as part of WPA, Every single house in the city of Newton was photographed as part of a make work project or a work project. And so the Historical Society has a photograph of every house that was in existence in 1930s. So the city might be able to now with AI Download those facades and it would make it a whole lot easier if we had a picture of the house.

We can do an instant ID. I don't know how that would be as far as a lot of time has passed since.

Let's say 70% of the houses are still there.

Yeah, still there or may have changed in some way through some work that was done, but I mean, it's an option.

We also have all those photographs in the assessment database. Yes. They're already in the same database. Google has them all.

Google has it all. Google has it all.

Yeah. Any other questions from the commissioner? Seeing none, I just want to thank the Commissioner and the staff and Mr. Yeo and Attorney slash Councilor Lee, not Councilor Lee, and But, Commissioner, I think that the sense of the committee is that we want to cheer you on, but expand your reach. So if you wouldn't mind, as I indicated, just producing sort of a supplemental Memo that you can give to Ms. Holden that we can attach to the report. I think it'll be helpful for everybody. Okay? Okay. All right. So this is an item we've held multiple times, but Questions you want to, it would have to be redacted for the new term. So do anyone want to? It will disappear on its own, but we can NAN it and then bring it back.

So I bring it back as a committee item after the first of the year, but if that's agreeable to the committee, because I think we'd like to stay up with you on this about every six months.

Can we just let it die instead of going no action necessary because I feel like some things don't deserve a no action necessary.

Yeah, all right.

And then we'll have a list at the end of the day.

I think then the motion is to hold and then it will die. Yes, yes. All right, okay. So is that what you're moving?

Yeah.

All right. Motion to hold. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Abstention? The ayes have it. The second item, and again, the commissioners are our guests for this is 268.25, requesting discussion and possible revisions to the fee structure for initial estimated construction costs. and I should read this one because it sets up a conversation. Councilors Wright, Lucas, Malakie, Oliver, Getz requesting discussion and possible revisions of the fee structure for initial estimated construction costs. that is utilization of a minimum of $250 per foot per finished bed. If construction costs are below the threshold, the developer can provide documentation of their costs for review. discussion to include best practices, state laws, and neighboring communities practices. So, and I just want to say at the outset, this is an item about

What is the right number for estimating the building permit costs as I understand it? That's really all we're talking about. But I want to be clear that Commissioner can respond about what this is about and what he's doing.

Sure. So the right number in Ordinance 17.7, estimated construction costs shall be computed by multiplying the gross floor area by the average square foot cost as published in the latest edition of Means Cost Data by Iris Means Company or similar recognized national survey data. So we've done research with other municipalities to find out how they did it. We used ICC, which is the International Code Council, which is the similar recognized natural data. Other municipalities will use means but there are several that use the same one we do. We base the average cost per square foot which comes up twice a year, once in August, once in February.

Currently, that cost per square foot for one or two family homes is $170 a square foot.

Okay, so questions? But before I do, I just want to see if any of the diagrams are part of the one I sent you going first. Go ahead.

We had a discussion a little bit ahead of time to understand this a little bit and this is something that really just put in recently because we've gotten complaints from residents that it didn't make sense.

The recent complaints that we were getting from residents were The information was not correct. They were using square footage either from real giraffes or somewhere else, not where I have shown where we use it from the condition floor area by the HERS rating, which I think I said to everybody here. Okay. This way here, it's so This is for new homes, new buildings. So I think it's a fair and even way to do this. I believe we've the whole idea was when I took the job here was to try to get these in order okay and I believe we have Deputy Commissioner Lavrella says he's reviewing the plans for these If they're below 170, he's saying he's kicking it back. We're pretty stoned on it.

But in the past, years ago, that wasn't necessarily... Years ago, it wasn't adhered to that practice, so... as it should be, as it stated in the ordinance.

And as our discussion is, most cities and towns use very similar to what we're using.

Yeah, I can tell you other towns So, Brockton, Iris Means, Westboro ICC, Stoughton ICC, Canyon is Iris Means, Blueberry Port is ICC, Newton's ICC. It's all over the place. but it's mainly the two that we didn't see anything else or any other national recognized

And the Hertz rating for other people who don't know, that's the conditioned space. Includes basement, includes attic.

Well, basements if it's conditioned.

Yes, conditioned.

Addicts, if they're conditioned. I know some people say, well, why are you using FAR? Well, let's put a, let's use the old six foot 11 attic area, which won't count to FAR. But it's, they call it condition storage. Well, that will get added to the square footage count of that property.

And also FAI for most houses don't include the basement either. And this one does.

Well, it does if it's finished. Condition.

Air and heat.

This is talking about whether it's heated or cooled, right?

Yes.

Correct. Okay. I just want to be all clear on what conditioning means. Any other parts of the docketers? I just want to make sure. I want to go to Councilor Allwright because she was the first.

You answered my question about what conditions meant and then the other part was I'm sort of surprised that you know it's so regional you know I think that you want to get to the specificity of what the actual construction costs are in the city you know I just I just didn't understand how There's nothing. It's either or. They were just two questions.

I'm just following what the ordinance says.

Okay. All right. All right. And you think it's pretty much...

I think we do pretty well.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right. Okay.

Okay, now let me go to Councilor Albright.

Residents of Newton who called me regularly on this topic. One of them no longer lives in Newton. but always complaining that this house, you know, I think the issue sort of goes to what Councilor Getz was just asking me If it's regional or state, it doesn't really reflect necessarily what houses are selling for in Newton, Massachusetts. So I don't know if I did this right. If you have a $2 million house that's 3,000 square feet, so you divide that up and you come to something like, I don't know, $600 a square foot, that's so much higher than, this is what these people are looking at.

Yeah.

These houses sell for two, three, four, five million dollars, and yet their building permits are for much, much less.

Right, but again, it's not what the property is sold for, it's what it costs to build. And what they're saying is to use the average national cost per square foot.

So are we saying that those average costs per square foot are accurate for Newton, Massachusetts? Would it cost to build a house?

No, I would say it would be a little more, but I mean... We'd have to change the ordinance.

So it's on us then to change the ordinance.

But again, the... I know some residents are saying the city is leaving money on the table and we're not. What we're doing is we're trying to price these things as fairly as possible. Newton is a very well-to-do community. And yeah, does it cost probably more to build homes here? I'm not going to dispute that. I think this is a fair amount right now this goes up this comes down it goes with how the market proceeds that it should be.

Let me just finish by saying that when folks look at the way things sell and the cost per square foot based on that, They just feel like, okay, we have budget problems in Newton. We're leaving money on the table. And I see, I would love to hear Mr. Yeo, because he's saying, no, that's not right.

Mr. Yeo, I'm going to... Why don't you just pull your chair up where people can hear you. Right here.

Thank you. So we have an amazing assessor who works for the city. and he will make sure that once this property is on the books of the tax rolls of the city that we're assessing it correctly. So we will have all of these homes pay once the value Thank you. Thank you. One important thing to remember is we've seen record revenue from the building permits over the last several years. Every year it's been going up and so we're doing very well despite the fact that permits are down 30 or 40 percent. There's a lot less development going on now in the city.

But the value of the work has been going up. So we're catching that value through the system that ISD It has to be something that is set and that's what all communities do. They're not picking a number themselves. And we don't have like an analytical team to be going and actually calculating what the actual number, whether it's 178 or 190 here or something like that. We don't have the ability, we would never have the ability to go and do that. So we have to use something that's fair.

Keep in mind that 170 is the base. And we also get the final cost affidavits. Some come in higher than the 170. even prior to the final cost affidavits are sent in. and I did correct that if I would cause affidavit then.

And also it includes like gas and electric is on top of it. So there's other piece on top of it.

For people who are watching who are maybe not building expert. When somebody comes in and asks for a building permit, they're charged a fee based on the estimated construction cost, right? and the builder or wherever Ag applies for the permit has to give an affidavit that says that that's an accurate number. At the very end of the project. At the very end of the project. And so if the number is below what you're Table indicates that that raises a question in your mind that whether that's an accurate number.

If the original number is lower than what it should be, we will kick it back to them and not issue them the profit, we'll say. We adjust your costs in order to meet.

But there still is an obligation to certify at the end what the cost is, right? And that certification, is that... certification under pains and penalties of perjury?

It's notarized by a notary saying that, yes, they are.

So if it turns out you find out that that I haven't seen that happen, but I don't know.

Maybe there would be.

Well, Mr. Lee might be able to counsel. and Attorney Lee might be able to advise us at some point. But let me go back to committee. Who else wanted to talk on this? Councilor Kalis or Councilor Danberg.

Thank you. What does the 170 not include? I think it would be helpful for people listening and for those of us in the room to have a recap on what's not included in the 170?

Landscaping, fencing, retaining walls, any drainage system that's installed. Those are all typically, you know, Trainers is handled by engineering, so that would be on their end. And any landscaping that they do there, we don't consider. It's not anything that would require a building permit. Retaining walls typically on the four feet do not require a building permit. So we don't include them in costs to build the house. So foundation, the roof, the interior, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, gas.

So, the doctors, one of you, what was the objective of the other? Did you think we were too low?

Did you think... Oh, we're not too low or not consistent.

Okay. So... If I may, I'll add to that. We wanted to hear what the process that the city was going through, because we heard there was a process, but we didn't know what it was. We wanted to understand it.

So, Commissioner, you had mentioned You didn't mention Needham, Wellesley, Brookline.

Wellesley, yeah.

ICC as well.

I think Wellesley is ICC. They're on the list here. No, they don't have anything. They just have their per square foot. And all this means, yeah. We really had so many, so some we couldn't get any information from, but you know. Brookline. Brookline uses ICC, I believe. Brookline didn't have this. Brockton has Iris Means, Newton's ICC.

The streaming handles have any that you mentioned that were right around where we are. Yeah. And that's what is curious.

Well, if they're using ICC, they should be exactly moving it.

Right, but all the ones that I just asked about aren't showing up. We didn't get the information on those, those particular ones. So can we know if those are ICC or not?

I could continue to look and see, sure.

Yeah, I'd want to know Needham, Wellesley, Brookline, Weston, Watertown. Well then, right in this area. It was curious when you were mentioning those. And I think it is great What are we missing out on potentially? And that's why I want to understand those right in our area, because if they're using something different, we should know that.

Right. We're only allowed to really collect so much money. through this program and all of you should be well aware of that. We have to be very careful here.

I'm just curious, is there a cap?

No, but we should just be very careful.

I think the point is that you're trying to, if the building permits are based on the cost of the building, we want to just make sure the cost is accurate. And so I think, Commissioner, that's the only question that's really before us. And you've used, according to what the ordinance requires, a table of nationally recognized. And I think the only supplemental information would be helpful to add as again part of your supplemental document what the surrounding towns use as an index. and an explanation of it if it's not the same means or the ITC. So any other questions from the committee? Um, so this one, um, this one where I, uh, entertain a motion in court, I point any hand on this one.

I'm happy to any hand this one. All right. Thank you for taking the time to kind of take one step back to bring us to the end.

This was ISD's Night at the Pop. So we appreciate you being here. Thank you for having me. All right. If you want to move. Oh, hold on.

Go ahead and get the data that Councilor Cahill assigned you.

I'll do the best I can.

All right, so motion NAN. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstention? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I should just point out that we could have watched a couple of short subjects here in the meantime, but never mind. Welcome. Item 316.25. This is CPC recommendation. CPC recommendation to appropriate $1,997,000 in CPA historic resource funding. This is unrestricted prior year reserves. for a grant to the West Newton Cinema Foundation for their building stabilization budget. And who is going to present this?

and would you just identify yourself for the public?

Hello, I'm Molly Hutchings. I'm the Community Preservation Program Manager If I haven't met you yet, I did forget to join the Zoom ahead of time, so I'm just going to do that quickly so I can share my PowerPoint presentation. Buzz Dunker is our chair, and he's also online.

Thank you. Can you help her at all? I think you have to, she has to let you share.

Yeah. Are you in the meeting room? I just, just, oh, okay. So if I didn't miss you. And it says I'm Katie Liebel, but I'm not.

Perfect. Okay, you should begin.

Here we go. Thank you. So we are presenting for the West Newton Cinema for their building stabilization phase of work.

Before you start, can I ask, can we make the screen big enough to pick up the slide? There you go.

We were previously here about a year ago to talk about the feasibility study which has since finished and now the cinema foundation is moving into their first construction phase. And we'll tell you a little bit more about that. So this is what we're calling the building stabilization project. It is mostly a roof replacement and an electrical service upgrade. It's also the restoration of all ECRA stores, some insulation and water service upgrades, and interior work that repairs water damage that came from the poor roof. The building is eligible for CPA funding. It's eligible for historic resource funds as it is listed within the West End National Register District and all of the work

Here is eligible at falls under the rehabilitation standard for the Secretary of Interior standards. I know Elizabeth from the foundation is on the call and I'm sorry Elizabeth for showing this picture but this is what the roof looks like at the top of the cinema. This is why they need a new roof. This is not the scariest picture I have.

They're saving that for Halloween.

I know. This was the one that fit best into the presentation.

Is that mold?

No, it's just plaster.

The black?

Oh, I don't know. For the most of what you see, it's just the erosion of the plaster. So it is a big project. They're asking for just short of $2 million, but it is 50% of the project budget. So it is a one-for-one match. I had recommended this out of prior year reserves, thinking I had already been to you emptying out our historic reserves, but I have not. So that was the original recommendation that would all come from the unrestricted prior year reserves. But it can also be amended to allow for it to come out of the historic reserve account.

As I understand it, 10% every year has to be allocated to the four categories that of one of which is a story and that fund has been building up for a while as I have it. But is there enough in that 10%? That seems like a lot of money.

It's 500,000 change.

So I guess the question is, what was the the CPC make a recommendation to use it?

No, this is just me picking out the funds.

Okay, so does the council, I just want to make sure we're clear about this. Can we pass the item with the allocation to the reserves first, and then the balance from the unrestricted. just double check that because if the CPC you know our our ability is to pass or reject funding as it comes to us as I understand it and if it hasn't got a funding source. I just want to clarify that. I think it makes sense personally, but I just would like to make sure. Okay, Councilor Kalen.

Along with that, can you, you might have it in here, can you outline the balances

I don't have it. Sometimes I do. I don't have it today, but there is about 5.5 million in this fund that I have up here.

Yeah, restricted?

Yes.

but that's not already permitted this year. It's not allowed.

Okay. And is 5.5 million, does that represent one year, two years of accumulation?

Not that one. It's our starting balance, so there's a little bit left over from last year, I think, in that one.

But there are bonding commitments and things like that already. They've been set aside. So you're talking about above and beyond whatever. We're paying on Webster Woods for that. So does that five million use that or is that not?

Yes, and it's fine to use that number.

I'm sorry, I'm just trying to understand. We're just trying to get it. So the money that is available for this project and every other project would be basically a million and a half is coming out of unrestricted half a million come out of restricted and then you've still got about three million on top of that as I hear it available for everything else that's not already committed. Is that correct? That is correct. OK. Again, when we get the final report, I think that information Councilor Kalish has asked for is helpful.

I'll be attached to that one.

Yeah. You can just put it in there or something.

I just want to make sure that

The 5.5, does that represent one year or two years or what? Approximately.

That's about one year.

About one year, okay. All right, that's good.

We get money from the city and then there's some state match on top of it.

Can you remind me, if it's not in the slide that's coming up, unrestricted is still somewhat restricted, but it's not the historic, it's not the open space, it's not the Can you give me just a reminder?

The funds can be used for any of our categories, but any project that's funded with unrestricted funds still has to adhere to all the rules.

whether it's open space, historic.

They still have to fit into one of those four categories. They still have to follow all of the regulations for it. It's just that the money can go to any of them.

Thank you. I have a question about this, but I want to see if other members of the committee have any first. If not, let me just ask a couple of them. The funding is, there's an indication of an equal amount coming out of the West Newton Foundation. Is that money in hand? We've had a a situation I remember with the church towers where the whether the city had to go in first in order to get the the to sort of leverage the rest or is that money in hand where are we with the balance

Elizabeth, Heilig, I think is on the call and might be able to answer that in more detail. I know some of it is in hand and not all of it.

so are we are we paying out money dollar for dollar when they've got it or i mean we have to receive proof of payment to pay payment so it's more like a reimbursement Okay, but they can let a contract and they can, I guess, put some money down. The question is, are we sure that we're going to get our The match, that's the question I suspect, if not in this committee, will be asked in finance. So I think we need to be clear about the funding sequence and the assurances involved.

Molly, is somebody named Ray associated with them?

Oh yes, Ray is the treasurer of the foundation.

Okay, welcome.

and Elizabeth is also unmuted.

Hi, yeah, if you don't mind. Welcome both.

If we can unmute you and make you visible.

Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak for a minute. Just for some clarity, we're sitting today with just a tick over $2.5 million in cash on hand. Now we have some working capital needs against that cash, but we've already started the quiet phase of specific fundraising toward this project and have secured the first $500,000 from a single donor. and that money has come in hand and is included in the balance that I just stated. We feel very confident that we're going to raise the rest of the funds but as Molly mentioned I think the understanding is we would do this $3,994,000 project in a few phases. The most urgent piece is the roof repair. and the cost of that contract is $984,000.

So we have all of the cash in hand to move forward with that piece of the contract and we will continue our fundraising efforts to raise the balance of the match. but I do want to reiterate that we are sitting with two and a half million dollars in cash today, unrestricted cash.

I think it would be helpful Again, you just gave a little summary of that and write it into the record.

Questions? Sorry, I just want to follow up to something that Councilor Baker just asked. And I think you were about to answer it, and then we went down this pathway. Are there any of these funds that are then being used to kind of further get other grants or other monies coming in knowing that this is secured from the city?

I think, again, Ray and Elizabeth can speak to that. I don't have I know that they pursued a mass cultural council fund for the feasibility study phase, but I'm not sure about this phase.

What do you think, Ray or Elizabeth?

So was the question whether we will be bringing in additional grants from other sources to match these funds?

In a previous project, There was a contingency, if I may use that term, that basically said, look, in order to qualify for this grant or even to receive this grant, we need to know that the city of Newton is already funding, and I forget the percentage of the project, but it was kind of a, the city had to basically commit to spending the funds the way that we just are being, you know, in terms of reimbursement but I'm curious to know if you have that same scenario where grants are contingent upon the city of Newton agreeing to this allocation.

No, we do not have that situation.

Okay, thank you. Councilor Danberg and then Councilor Olbrich, sorry.

Just a quick comment on Mass Cultural Council grants. I know that The NCA for the Allen House has received numerous grants from on the facilities as facilities grants. I'm sure that this would The West Newton Cinema would be eligible for a facilities grant. I just wanted to make sure that you have that on your list because they're normally in the hundreds of thousands. when the grants begin.

Yes, we do have that on our radar.

Thank you. So the first thing I want to say is I'm thrilled that you all are doing this and thank you very much for taking on the leadership to get it done because it really makes a big difference for our city and certainly for West Newton. So I'm curious, is this the first of a series of renovations for the cinema. And do you have any idea how big the breadbox is, so to speak, where you're going with this? Either of you.

Okay, sure. Yes, so this is phase A. As part of the feasibility study, which was performed with support from CPA as well. Thanks for that. We broke the proposed work into four phases which are roughly equal in terms of expense. So this first phase leads the groundwork for additional work which we need to perform in the upcoming phases. Namely upgrading the electricity and the water services for the building will enable us to install and power an elevator. It will also, in a later phase, it will also enable us to replace our AG and oil fired burners that heat the building with electric heat pumps.

and we plan to do solar as well to bring the building up to modern standards of sustainability in terms of energy usage. Water Service will enable us to replumb and install upgraded bathrooms that meet accessibility and code requirements. So it's a long list. We plan to do it in phases, both in terms of time and in terms of as we're able to raise funds from grants and other sources including Mass Cultural Council grants which we do, the CFF which we do plan to apply for this cycle. and the total project cost in the feasibility study was projected, including contingencies, was projected to be 19 million.

19 million and that's for all the phases?

All of the phases and some extras.

But to follow on that, I've got Councilor Farrell, but I want to just ask a follow up and then myself if I can. Of the 19 million you're asking for the city, to put in basically two now. What's your anticipated ask for the city for the balance?

So after we finish this phase and it comes to the second phase, we are hopeful that we can apply again, especially for support of historic restoration of various parts of the theater and for accessibility, which is something which falls within the CPA mandate.

But how much?

So I think we'll need to gauge that based on what funding is available and what other projects are coming up.

I just say that if you maintain it, that would be $10 million all the way through. And I don't know if we have the wherewithal for that.

I don't think to say that has been a topic of conversation at CCC meetings, as is the time list of the project, which I forget what we looked at, but maybe two or three years between Faith and I will say there has been a strong interest among the committee on funding is one of our number one public comments. that we get at meetings about funding the cinema is that it's not accessible and when will it be, will this work make it accessible? So we, at the committee meetings we have seen Quite a bit of interest in that.

But that's not in this budget.

The electrical work is the preparation for it. So I think there's an interest in seeing that list.

OK. Let me recognize Councilor Farrell, who's been very patient, not a member of the committee, but if you can become visible. Are we making a vote?

Yes, sir. Yeah.

Oh, there he is.

I hope I'm visible, Chair.

Yes, there you are.

Okay, and thank you very much for recognizing me. And I want to thank this group also for the work you're doing. I believe that the restoration of the West Newton Cinema can have a significant impact on lots of development in West Newton. I hope it will become a keystone. for appropriate development in that area. The four million that you're trying to raise right now, that doesn't guarantee any of the other questions about accessibility and so forth. Is that correct? This is just basic. Foundational Work. Am I correct in understanding that?

Would you like me to speak to that, Molly?

Yeah, I think either of us can. Yes, it's in preparation for future work, but there's no accessibility improvements at this time, and it's just what needs to be done before those can happen.

and some of my other questions already answered about the total cost of the project. But when you're done with 19 million, well, let me ask you a first question. Is there a public capital campaign committee working with you all that you can, Now or later make public to us who are the people who are leading this effort to raise essentially $15 million?

So the people leading this effort are our board members, and we have an extraordinarily gifted development consultant, Barbara Tillelian, who is on our board of advisors, who is leading the campaign with us.

I'm very happy to hear about Barbara Tolowian. I've known her for a number of years. Does this mean that the entire board is the Capital Campaign Committee or is a group dedicated just to this work?

We have a subcommittee, which includes myself, Ray, who is also on the call, our treasurer, and a third board member, Lynn Peppel. Actually, so two more board members, Lynn Peppel and Howard Barnstone, who are also on the Thank you.

When you're done, and with this infusion of public monies, what will What will be the access to this building by groups not connected to West Newton Cinema? Do you have any sense about how this public money will allow Are there nonprofit organizations to use your facility? Is that on your agenda? Are you working with other nonprofits to ensure that they would be able to use the facility in some regard?

So we do already work with other nonprofits in the city, other community organizations in the city, which come to us to utilize our space for movie screenings. or for other types of gatherings. And I expect that to increase as we build our connections and our network within the community.

Believe me, I am terribly supportive of what you're doing, and I really want to see this to be a great success. But I'm very interested in looking at the history of the Coolidge Corner facility where they actually now use it for more than theater work. And I don't know in your planning whether or not you think there might be a possibility of actually raising more money and creating new space that would be useful to other organizations that need space.

So I think right now we have our hands full with fixing up our historic building. We see a lot of potential. Part of the full capital campaign includes putting a stage into one of the theaters which would allow us to expand live programming offerings and also expand the functionality of that space for other community groups who wanted to come in and use it or rent it or private people who want to rent it.

Have you been approached by any other nonprofits to... Can I just ask, I mean, these are detailed questions about their I don't believe in your inquiry, but I think we have to decide whether the foundation work that they're talking about is is worthy. I think we will have more opportunities to examine other questions as well, but this

Thank you, Chair. My thought about $2 million of public money plus some potential other money is only leading me to the notion that has there been sufficient thought in that with that amount of money that we are looking at other cooperative efforts that when they build something it will in fact be useful We're talking about putting a lot of money into this facility. And I understand that there are lots of arts organizations out there that could use Some space. And before it all gets built and designed out, I guess I'm just trying to find out whether or not they're and supported by public money, whether there are considerations

as they move forward in doing something, in fact, more expensive. Thank you for letting me ask the questions.

I appreciate it. Farrell. So now that Councilor Farrell has clarified his intent, Do you want to respond, Kelley? I'm sorry, I can't read.

Oh, sure. So in terms of the utilization of the space, Our focus right now is on restoring this historic building. That's why we're here before CPC, restoring it so that it can be utilized as it was intended. for a community gathering space, a movie theater, and for auditoriums that people are able to rent out. And there are very few places in Newton which are public gathering spaces quite like this. So I feel that we offer a lot to the community just in that respect. We had 60,000 people walk through our doors in the first 12 months of ownership, the majority of whom live in Newton. That's a lot of people. who are coming to the theater and enjoying the theater every day and will really appreciate it when it's beautiful and comfortable and accessible. for everyone.

And the people who benefit from it are across the age spectrum as well. From kids who come in for their first birthday parties to people in their 90s who come in for birthdays to people who are coming for our special events and part of what we're doing as an organization is inviting people in. That's really at the heart of our mission to invite them in to experience film, talk to one another, and to really shape a new place for the community to gather. So in terms of expanding to other usages, the space which we have now is the space that we have. There's not a whole lot of opportunity to build out but in terms of building in, As I mentioned, we plan to add a stage. We also, you know, for many years, the cinema has hosted Newton Camera Club.

for their annual show. We have an area upstairs in the mezzanine that we plan to turn into an exhibition space with new mounting hardware that's more functional and proper lighting so that we can show art year round. There are numerous other arts organizations in addition to the Camera Club and the City of Newton that I think would be wonderful to work with in that respect. so that we can fully program this space. Another example is we have the wonderful Newton book ladies who meet once a month. and set up a book exchange in our mezzanine. So that's an example of the kind of utilization that we want to build on where people are welcome to come in even if they're not seeing a movie. to participate, you know, to see an art exhibit, to, you know, go upstairs, enjoy the book exchange, do whatever else we have coming on. And we're blessed with a large lobby. that we can use for events like that. What we don't have is a lot of back of house space.

So if you're thinking of studio space, For example, there's really not much of an opportunity for something like that. But we can offer median space to the community in our lounge, in our mezzanine area, and in our six theaters.

Let me just comment as I think most of us, maybe not everybody knows that you can This Friday you can go watch Arsenic and Old Lace in the afternoon at 1 o'clock for $10 through one of the community organizations. But I think that to respond to Councilor Farrell's, I think, My memory of having taken a tour through the Brookline Theater is that they actually expanded and they had the ability to make the footprint bigger than we do. I think we have a facility that basically is space bound on the outside. And so the question is, how do you make it work on the inside? I think that's the thrust of the discussion.

I just want to quickly acknowledge that I didn't actually get to finish my presentation, but I think we

I'm sorry. I think we answered all the questions.

I just had a quick slide on accessibility, which I think we've covered. But that picture, if I can just share again real quick. The picture of the lobby I wanted to draw quick attention to that there are some, here we go. There is some interior work on this project as well and part of the reason for including that it's not just because it's badly water damaged and you know now that the roof will be fixed ideally the water damage will stop but also because it is something very visible and something that the community can see and feel that they know how the $2 million from their tax money is being spent. Anytime it doesn't rain on you inside, that's also their tax money at work. This is something that I think

will work to make people feel that they're moving along with their part of this project that's progressing.

Goetz.

Did you want to have the chair, Mr. Ducker, speak? Or did you, I can go ahead.

Sorry, I didn't see your hand was up. Yes, please.

Hi. Just to clarify, when we were discussing all of this in our meetings and heard about the four phases, We felt that this first part was just restoring a historic structure that if we don't give them the money with the roof leaking and all the electrical problems, the building will pretty much become useless. and and so we thought the first two million dollars was going to go towards that and going forward with future plans we said well you'd have to come back and and let us know what that is but That was our primary goal here is just to try to stabilize the building.

Thank you. Councilor Goetz.

Just two quick questions. I'm on the city's web page for the Western Cinema. And I'm actually wondering, the actual report or the feasibility study report, was there any sort of final document that they issued?

Yes, you sent me that, right, Elizabeth? Yeah, I haven't put it on the website, but I will.

All right, because it would be really good to read through that because I think that, you know, just having an overview, you know, in terms of what this is, you know, In the eventual, you know, but I'm assuming that first proposal was simply for the feasibility of whether or not it was even possible to restore the building. Yes. Okay, so that's just in terms of the content that we have. It's just looking at the stabilization of the building. Okay, so that's pretty much what it's going to be speaking to.

So stabilizing the building is phase A, as Elizabeth described, of a greater restoration of the building.

But it would be good to understand if, in fact, the total cost is going to be $19 million. What that pays for in terms of is that within the study itself so that then we would be able to sort of exactly yes. Correct, because I would like to have that conceptually, you know, just to understand what the ask will be incrementally. And just, you know, because if in fact it's going to be a $20 million project, over 10 years, you know, it's going to eat up a bit of this public, you know, in terms of the historic resources. So it'd be good to sort of have that in mind, you know.

Elizabeth did share it in a presentation at our committee meeting about roughly what will be included in each phase of work. I didn't put them too far down the line because I didn't want to commit us to anything too quickly, but yeah, I'll put it on the website. That would be great.

And then the other piece is the actual appropriations because I do think it's important for us before we go to full council to have an understanding of what you know is paying for what you know when you were talking about um how much is coming from the historic resources how much is coming from the general fund and I don't know if that means a second call.

No, but I still got to go to finance. So what I would do is if the committee is supportive of this item, to move it to finance in the aggregate, because that's what we have, with a request that they sort out the allocation in finance so that the item can be reported with clarity. Because we can't do that tonight, I think, without Ms. Hutchins having the ability to do that.

Thank you. So I appreciate the commentary. as well from Elizabeth and Buzz and Ray. I understand and am in support of Weston M. Center. I think that this first, you know, tranche or tranche or whatever that term is of funding makes sense because it protects the building and then obviously protects the envelope of the building. So the interior of the building has a chance of being I will say that I do have a significant concern if the plan could end up going back to the city for a total of $10 million over the course of time.

That is a boatload of dollars that right here, right now, I would be very uncomfortable kind of if someone were here saying, look, the plan is X. Right over the course of 10 years and it's a total of $10 million. I would be voting no. I understand nobody's asking for $10 million right now, but If that is where we are thinking, I would implore everybody at Western Cinema and CPA to kind of figure out alternatives as well, because you might have a hard time convincing me that 10 million over the course of, given everything else that's in front of this city, is a wise way to allocate $10 million of CPA funds. Anyway.

Don't take that as anything other than my thinking. You don't have to defend that. You don't have to address what might be coming down the road because it's not in front of us.

Something that is said Anytime we talk about giving a large amount of money to any project, especially any multi-phase project, is that the percentage of funding we're awarding tonight is not indicative of future percentages.

Correct. And I've acknowledged that twice. However, what I heard tonight was, but there's a pretty good chance there will be more asked for later. And at some point, like, Someone's going to have to go further for a total of $10 million to win my support for that. However, that being said, protecting this the envelope of this building like to me that is at least something we need to consider that I'd be supportive of.

Let me just comment. I share some of the concern because we don't want to make an implicit commitment to a $10 million project. I mean, that's just what I think you're hearing around the table. I do think there is value in the city doing what Councilor Oliver indicated and maybe some of the other second stage things that are candidly hard to put into naming rights. If somebody wants to make a donation and it's going to be the, you know, the Councilor Albright auditorium, it's one thing. Albright accessible ramp doesn't quite have an ash. And so I think that there is a legitimate role for the public to sort of make literally the foundation for the opportunities. Here, but it's not an unlimited amount. I just want to say that. Okay, have we had any further conversation about that?

I have finished as much as I will present.

Feel free to supplement the documents or provide them as a report so that we can get that. Because I think that you want to sort of set this up for finance for an easy decision in terms of the documents. So that's what I would recommend following up Councilor Kalis on. Move to approve. Okay. Motion to approve. All of us in favor will say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstention? And again, Councilor Farrell, thank you for taking time to join us and participate. Your question is overdone. Okay, all right. I'm going to suggest we take just a five-minute bio break, everybody, and then be back for the next installment. Thank you all.

Recording stopped.

Thank you.

and others.

and so on.

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

and so on.

Okay, we're back.

So the next item we have discussed before, but I want to indicate that this item 4424 requesting reevaluation of possible amendments to the inclusionary zoning ordinance. We also have a companion item 7224 requesting updates on the municipal affordable housing trust. And the 4524 discussion and possible amendment to include excuse me, Amendment to Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance to Include Training. So these are all of a piece to a certain extent and we're fortunate to be advised by members of the representative housing authority as well as the affordable housing trust as well as our department.

and I'm going to recognize Ms. Kreutzer to take us through this and there's a significant amount of material attached through the agenda as you're going to see and I don't expect you to walk us line by line through this but I think we need to See if we can come to conclusion on this item because we're coming to the end of the term. So I hope you will aid us doing that. And I apologize for starting late to those of you who have been in attendance. And as I said, I hope you had a good book. And Mr. Planning Director, do you want to come to the table for this? Mr. Kalis is going to be doing virtual. All right, so Ms. Crutcher, you want to lead off and then I ask Mr. Heap to sort of help manage the rest of the conversation.

Absolutely. Well, thank you for for letting us come back here tonight. I've also wanted to note that Shaylin Davis is also available virtually tonight for any questions. So the information that we presented based on previous discussions, we gave a detailed staff panel going over the changes. There's really three changes left. that Zach has been discussing and has not come to an agreement on. Raising the buy-write allowance agreements from 7 to 9, which is what it is now, to 7 to 19 units. eliminating the requirement for contractual resident services for ELI units in the ELI alternate compliance option and changes to the senior housing these elder housing in the ordinance to eliminate, or we've made two changes there.

We've changed the formula for how it's calculated, and we've also made a change since last May to remove independent living. The thought there is that independent living is really a different category from what we're talking about from where There are not the same level of services of medical assistance provided. And so the independent living should really be calculated in the same way that we calculate any unit in any development in the city. so for the elder services ones we've given it um there's a lesser percentage requirement and there's a lesser uh payment in lieu so it depends on whether they would be treated as any other development

So now this is the substance of the department's now posture on the item, as I understand it, right? Right. So it's really up to the committee to decide whether we agree with those recommendations or we want to do something else. So let's take them one at a time. I think that's agreeable to the committee. and we also, Mr. Heath, do you want to introduce the representatives?

Yes, we have Ann Houston from the Housing Trust and Michael Lahr from the Housing Authority. So Anne has given a lot of thought to this ordinance and in particular the issue with cash payment and what that can potentially leverage in terms of affordable units.

OK. I think it might be appropriate if it's agreeable in committee to hear from Ms. Houston on that specific issue because that's the first of the three. Is that agreeable? Yeah. Would you be willing to share? Do you want to come up?

Sure. You can have my seat. Oh, I could just sit in the side.

Well, we want to get you on camera if possible.

Okay.

So you can be heard. and also it's helpful because they've worked with you as well.

Great, thank you. Again, Ann Houston and I chair the trust. Susan Albright is represented to the council, represented to the trust. And I'm also supposed to give a report on our activities.

I'll give you a chance at the end of the conversation to do that.

We'll give you back some of your time. So the trust has funded three projects in its life. It's doing about one a year, and we're using all of the money. We were so grateful that last month the council allocated the CPC award to the trust for FY26. and, and The CPC funds are the vast majority of funds that the trust has to allocate. But we also rely on inclusionary zoning. The IZ funds become increasingly important as we face some federal risk with other sources of funds that the city has to support affordable housing.

You know, I think in the president's budget, there's a substantial reduction that is being proposed to both CDBG and home. and they're being proposed to be block granted to the state. Hasn't happened, not much is happening right now in Congress, so we don't know, but it's really what we have I did some analysis just to understand I chair the trust and I sit on the partnership, but really my bottom line interest is making sure that we're able to expand affordable housing opportunities in the city. And so, you know, how are we going to most effectively do that is my particular goal. I looked at the impact of

B and Lou looking at sort of the seven to 20 unit project and I put this together for the board for the partnership. I looked at projects we funded and actually I'm not sure why I didn't include Coleman. It would have made the per unit slightly less. But I looked at the total city investment, not just the trust funds. It's much lower when you look at the trust funds, but I think it's important for us to think about what we're in total putting into affordable housing projects. And you see Then between 2019 and 2025, if you look at the top right hand corner, on average, the city is investing $90,000 per affordable unit. Okay.

So these are all privately developed affordable housing projects. and that in lieu payment at $650,000 a year. I mean, $650,000 per unit. Thank you. I count on Barbie to be focused. If we made by right, and included all of the percentage. We didn't round up or down, but we just included the percentage in each unit. If you look at the blue box below, The seven unit project, which is by $455,000 because it's 70% of the money. Yeah.

Wait, wait, wait. Shouldn't it be 100%? I made that mistake when I did this chart originally. In the IC ordinance, seven units is 70%. and eight units is 80 and nine units is 90. Okay, and then 10 goes to 100. Okay, so we could make something for four units and five units and six units, something like that, a percentage. I think this is what you said. So for that in lieu of payment, We could support five private new developments, new units. For 19 units, we could support 20. So you would get one

inclusionary unit or an in lieu payment that would support 20 units.

So just the math there, you're dividing the total in lieu payment by the average cost. That's exactly right. Thank you.

I have two questions on that. So what's navigation? I haven't heard that. Oh, navigation is the West Newton family over on Washington Street. I just use shorthand in putting this together. But then it's a little bit different. I mean, that's just rooms for people and it's not a full apartment. And it's a very small amount. You could take that out and it actually Yeah, I don't think that's a right one. I did follow up. The other thing is because the since prices for building and things like that have gone up quite a bit since 2019. I think using just data from 2023 or 2022 and now would be better too. No, I actually did

and then realized I had already done a more extensive It actually ended up with, it had a lower per unit figure than the 90. It was about 65, I think. It did include navigation. I thought that it was important to include everything we've invested in. Some of these are bigger, some are smaller. Some are, they actually include, the trust has invested in three types of housing. Each one of our projects has been, we've been, Preservation Project, The Coleman House,

The Navigation were new units coming on. And Newton Gardens is this naturally occurring affordable housing. We got nice coverage in the Globe last week on it. So, you know, it gives you a good sense of the range of projects that we might be able to fund.

Let me just clarify this for purposes of the committee and I hope the public. The top chart is an attempt to try and get a rough estimate of sort of the contribution Produces an affordable unit. In other words, $90,000, maybe it's $100,000 now, but that produces an affordable unit as part of the process that you've been undertaking. and what I'm hearing in the lower chart is that if you compare a unit on site compared to cash turning and that at least the position of the housing trust is that you could get a significantly larger number of units. The money would leverage a significantly larger number of units even if it's not on site from the units that are on site.

Thank you. Perfect.

Is that accurate? Yes. So that's the choice that I think is before the committee to decide. We've had a conversation just for summary, you and I have listened to or had the chance to hear the prior conversation that Part of the value of having units on site is that the units are there and people are participating in that project. And there's been, I think, an historical preference from the council Councilor Albright can remember better than I can, I think, but we've lived this for a while in favor of on-site units rather than having people trade out. But this is the chance, at least in the in the smaller projects to ask whether that's still the right policy or we should go from what I'm hearing from you that the trust would prefer having more money and more units than having Fewer units, less money.

So if I might, the trust has not officially weighed in on this. We haven't had a meeting to do it. Fair point. of the World. And for larger projects, I would absolutely agree with you that it is really critically important to have affordable units that are integrated into larger projects. But I think that when you look at creating three units in a 19 unit project. It doesn't begin if there's both a real inefficiency for city to stack to monitor those projects and for the developer to do this sort of really a sense of compliance.

And every time the city tells me what they have to do for each compliance, It makes me tired. It's really extensive. And so that's one reason. And the other is just practically, I think that we don't have the resources to keep up with Some of the production that we potentially could have. We have enough funds right now to fund 20 to 30 units. It would be really helpful to have some more so that we can respond in a really timely manner. and be able to make sure that we're using our funds in the best way and producing the best housing.

Okay. So let me go to members of the committee. Councilor Oliver. Councilor Krintzman. Oh, I'm sorry. Councilor Krintzman, I'm sorry. I can't tell.

I just want to, I think, amend what you said, Mr. Chair, and I hope you'd agree with this, but we'll see. You said that there's been sort of a preference for building the units on site. I would say that I think the committee in the past has expressed a preference or at least a desire to get units built. I think maybe the conventional wisdom was that The easier path to that was going to be onsite and to have a developer do them. But I don't know that it was necessarily a preference for onsite as opposed to just a way to try and get the units actually constructed.

Well, I think Councilor Albright at least has, I think, a memory more consistent with mine.

Absolutely. I think the last battle we had over this was the project on the south side of the city. where the developer wanted to buy a building by Lake Street, Boston College Lake Street area, and put more units there then were actually needed to get the IZ requirement done. And we flatly turned that down and said, no, the units have to be on site. So that was the last battle we've had. And I think it pretty much continues project after project. I think our council has always hoped for projects where the IZ units are inbred into the Project.

The historical perspective, I guess, And we can agree, maybe not always the same in everybody's perspective, but we've got to figure out where we go with this. So I think the operational question is, do we follow the recommendation that the department has brought to us, or do we Wright.

So the money that you're spending in these units, but has some of the money been used to update present units and how much of that money has been used to update kitchens and bathrooms and units that we have already done.

part of the trust in using CPA funds has to follow all the CPA regulations and we are not allowed to renovate units. unless those units were created with CPA funds. So for example, for the Colvin House, funds were given, but funds were given for preserving the building as a whole, not for renovating any individual units. I don't believe any units have been renovated with trust funds.

But it preserves the affordability. Yeah. But there have been money used to update units.

We can use CDBG funds, we can use home funds for that, and we work quite a lot with the Housing Authority on doing those kind of projects, but we cannot use CPA funds.

Coleman, the vast majority of city funds came from CDBG. and I think actually CWG and Smallman.

Yeah, the CPA previously did a Home and CDBG funds also went into it. CPA gave money for windows, for masonry, and for roof. Because of issues with COVID and contractors and supplies being so expensive they weren't able to do the roof and that's where they came back to the trust. They had the funding at the time so the trust was asked to fund the roof and that's where that money went.

So how much of the trust then is actually going towards physical units versus other stuff? The trust does not allocate funds in that sort of way. We look at a total per unit for a project and I guess I'm having a little trouble understanding. When I talked about preservation, Those who are not, so when you do affordable housing, your units are restricted between 30 years in perpetuity, depends on when they come online. But, you know, you have to do upgrades. You have to and usually you do that through refinancing. And so it's really critical that we that we continue to make sure we reinvest in the

2075 affordable units in Newton. And so we have done one. of the three projects we've funded so far have been in a preservation project. It wasn't creating new units. It was making sure that the units that we have continue to be really excellent places to live and benefit the community as a whole. No, that was, that was, because Newton Gardens, none of those units were affordable. Those were really creating new affordability. That was the Coleman house run by two life. Yep. So Newton has 2,775. How many of those are apartments versus condos? Only 88 are homeownership units. Okay. So and does virtually all 190.

So and does Newton or any organization within Newton runs the condos? Or are those privately owned? Those are privately owned? Okay, I think that's it for right now. Oh, one other thing is I have been talking to someone else who works in this line of affordable housing. And I'll work with him and that we can get it down that recertification and things like that should only be about $1,000 per unit. and it should be a lot easier. And I will work to see about getting that done. Every year you got to put in for the rentals and stuff like that, which everyone complains about, especially with the small projects, there's only one or two. But if you get it down and get into a system, it should be pretty easy. And I'm going to work with this other person to see what we can do on that.

So let's just see where we are. Does the housing authority want to add anything to this country? Or at least you're representing the housing authority? Do you want to come to the board chair? I want the chair where you're visible is shared. Thank you. Thank you. Just say your name again for the record for the phone.

Sure. So I'm Michael Lara. I'm the executive director of the Housing Authority as of this January. But I just wanted to say first, thank you for letting me speak. And the Haywood House project was one that we're very proud of. Thank you for watching! but for new development it's becoming increasingly difficult to get state funding we actually have an earmark right now for over 2 million development that's on hold indefinitely given what's happening at the state budget level so we're trying to think very creatively of how to get are something that are key for us. I just kind of wanted to advocate and sort of remind and educate that that's key to creating although, again, as an affordable housing advocate, we always wanna see a new development having a component of affordability. Inclusionary units are great for a community.

Sometimes it's not always the perfect fit. I think we see that in a lot of neighboring cities where they decided cash payment. could provide a lot of benefit. And I think the unusual net benefit here would be that 50% of the inclusionary zoning cash goes to the trust for a great deal like Newton Gardens. And then 50% would flow to the housing authority We have three sites that we're looking to do redevelopment and new development on, but we cannot get going because the architectural engineering and design costs are so significant that it's in the millions. So we are sort of awaiting for a large cash payment to really get those deals going.

Okay. All right, Council, now, let me recognize Councilor Getz, because I would have recognized Councilor Ryan, I'll come back with you.

Okay. I actually, there are a couple of issues that I wanted to talk to. So when we do a cash in lieu, we remove those units from being counted on the SHI, correct?

Well, the new units that will be created will be. Okay. Yes.

All right. And actually sort of talks through with the law department. the ability to sort of in some way restrict you know that if in fact this this shift from 7 to 19 being having the option of Cash and Lou being restricted to that half mile radius, you know, in terms of the proximity to mass transit. It was an idea that I really wanted to sort of see whether or not, you know, there was any feasibility or any options to be able to in some way incentivize that the units be built, you know, so close to mass transit. And so I'm sort of feeling and I'm hearing from people that it's actually about the development costs for the projects. you know that that's the driver you know in terms of this this equation.

Right I think it's the development costs and as Ann mentioned the the level of detail that has to go into maintaining affordable units, putting them, making sure that they meet all the requirements for the market, the lottery. And that's the same whether it's one unit or whether it's 20 units.

Wright was just speaking to being able to in some way find someone who has that ability to then be contracted rather than it coming.

Well, but that is a recertification is something that but separate from getting these units off the ground.

No, I understand that, but I'm just trying to sort of balance the equation a little bit so that then it's actually taking the responsibility away from our planning department and then contracting it out so that then it's actually more feasible to have units created, you know, for the ones to...

I mean, it's a burden on both sides because the state is involved, because these units need to be added to the SHI. that adds months to the process to get the state to review and to approve things. So it's not just, it's quite a lot of work on our side, it's quite a lot of work on the contractor or the developer. And what we've also noticed with these smaller projects is they tend to be developers who maybe don't have as much experience, maybe have never done affordable housing. And so there's a much steeper learning curve. It takes a lot more in-depth work with them. then like a trio that has those who to hire knows what to do and go through the process.

I just, you know, I think it's a loss, you know, when you talk about the historic in terms of people in the council supporting the idea of integrated units, you know, I just sort of feel as if That's a goal that we would all really like to see continue, you know, just like wanting to see the integration into our community, especially if it has proximity to transit. But I'm also willing to sort of hear that when the Housing Authority was talking about needing the funding to launch some of these redevelopments, I live close to a site that has the real potential to expand. So I understand You know, the complexity of this.

I want to get us to a decision, if we can.

Okay, no, I'm just sort of, yeah, that was the only piece that I was sort of trying to understand.

That was a legitimate question, but let me recognize. I think I have Councilor Bright. I'm going to come back to you. I've got Councilor Danberg, Councilor Albright, and Councilor Oliver. Okay, and then I'd like to be heard. Councilor Wright first, and then come back to Councilor Danberg.

So I personally would prefer to keep the units, not go up to 19. and keep them on site. But I'm willing to compromise to possibly go up to 15 or something like that for rentals. but not for condos because once you sell them you sell them and until they sell again and they're at 80% and then we're going to talk about maybe a little 10% and this is a way for someone to get into the market for People like Osiris and younger people to get in and to buy something. You know, this is a starter home and things like that. And so we're not building, for the most part, we're not building condos at all. So I don't want to lose the few that we get not here and there for people who want to buy in versus the rental.

in general I'd rather not do it at all but if I had to compromise I could do with the rentals but not with the condos and I have a question where what are the three locations that you're looking at for development or redevelopment.

We have two federal public housing sites and one state public housing site that we're looking at redevelopment, which would be different paths and most likely through a low-income housing tax credit program as well.

So they're both housing right now. It's not like the dump over by The school and stuff when you were looking at land or the parking lots and stuff. So it's actually where there's housing now.

Yes, it's existing housing and all those State Program would get less than five cents for the dollar for the capital need backlog, and the federal government's not much better. but also lack accessibility for electrical and plumbing these days and are just at this point doing more capital improvements

And then, I mean, I would have liked to see a percentage in there. You said to add 40 to 50 units. But is it on a place that has 100 units or a place that has 20 units?

All three sites have that potential, so I think that's sort of not an average number. I think that's the goal. Two of them in particular could be far greater. I think all three sites.

So is that like a 50% increase than was there or is it?

One of them would be doubling its density overall for sure. Sure, our state family site, and the other sites that we have in mind for federal senior public housing, one would be probably about 60% of the site, and the other one would be closer to 50%.

Thank you. Okay, so let's see where we go, because I'd like to get essentially committee. Councilor Danberg.

Okay, I'm very impressed by the conclusion that you have here that in lieu payments produce Seven plus times more rental units. Can you delve into that just a little bit more and explain why that is?

So that is really based on the in-loop payment that would be created at different unit sizes and it's the average Oh, this is only looking at the 7 to 19 unit. that are produced, and using the average city investment at $90,000. I'm going to tell you, and I think Councilor Wright was right that this is sort of a wide-ranging list of projects over a number of years. We have talked with We've got some prospective projects coming in who are looking for about 60,000 per unit in city funds, total city funds, and that allows them to leverage very deep.

State and Federal Resources. We're priming their pump, isn't it? and the feds both absolutely require that there's a local investment before they will put their dollars in. But they'll come in with So having that pocket of that of

local investment is very important to our being able to leverage that. That's essential. And one of the questions that I had and you, Ms. Houston, you mentioned that we still have some units that sunset. Is that, can you? Speak to that a little bit.

Is that relevant to this? No disrespect to it.

No, not at all. Okay, if you don't want to discuss that now, but I... Yeah, and I'm happy to talk with you further. There might even be a conversation we have offline because I think expiring use projects are really important. And what I was really referencing is that just to maintain our housing in really good shape. You know, I don't think that we're a community that wants to feel like our affordable housing is subpar. I think we want to feel like it's great housing that you wouldn't recognize as the affordable housing. It's just part of our community resources. And we have to occasionally be ready to put some additional funding in to maintain that housing. Because it stays with us forever.

And could I just be clear from the chair? on what we're looking to accomplish and vote on if we vote on something tonight.

Right. Well, we've got several issues that Ms. Crutcher has highlighted that are sort of outstanding before. This is the first one. which is I'd like to get clarity on this one and then move to the other two and see if we can dispose of them tonight but this is the question of whether we stay with the on-site for smaller projects or we go to Cash and Lou up to the 20. And I'd like to Wright has indicated something she'd find acceptable in the middle, but I want to make sure that the members of committee get their questions answered and then see a little bit of a straw poll among the committee where we are. so that we can decide and move on to the next thing because it is now 9 15 and I would dearly love to get us out of here.

I'll leave it where it is so that other people can.

No, I appreciate this. It's a legitimate question. I just wanted to Okay, I think I have Councilor Overhead next.

So I just want to say that Anne has been shepherding a fabulous report on housing and living, and I hope it comes out soon because the answers to that question and many other questions are there. She's done an amazing, with the staff, done an amazing data collection of what's going on with housing in Newton. So I hope we see it soon. You know, I described before the battle that we had over that project, I think it was the Castlewoods project, but I came down the side of let's let this person buy this house near Lake Street where It's a five minute walk to the end of the sea line at Boston College, a five minute walk to food and amenities and the Kessler Woods project was nowhere near anything that you needed a car to go anywhere and so I was on the battle the side of the battle said let them put this off site because I don't think we want to, as my mother used to say, cut our noses off to spite our face just to stand on principle.

And if the money that we raise can do more units than the two or three units or the one unit that we get out of these smaller projects. It would be... a wonderful thing for the city to have more more units than just one or two or three here and there throughout the city. So I really hope that we will consider making this change and you know just as we had a look back provision that brought us to this point We can have another look back provision that insists that we look at it and see, well, how well did we do? Did we create the units or not? If not, let's put it back. So I think we should give this a try and see if it produces more units.

Thank you, Councilor Oliver. Great, thank you. So I'm going to start there if I could. Do we actually need to look back here? Like, and I don't know who I played. I know that we were required to review the IAZ on a regular basis every five years, correct? We can do it every six months if we want to. Is that true? Sure. Okay.

Great.

I don't recommend that. Sorry for the heart attack moment, but we could. So then I actually heard you say something a couple minutes ago, Ms. Palura, that I want to go back to. Did I hear you say that currently state and federal funds are kind of stuck?

We have state earmarked money for development that is definitely on hold due A result of the current government shutdown, we want to see where federal public housing lies. We have a program that rely on our unrestricted reserve to cover some of our day-to-day financing if there were significant cuts. and many more. We're sort of waiting to see where the chips fall so we can plan our budgets moving forward, but there is no room and typical excitement, as you'd say, in the past for development. We have to think creatively. The biggest equity line is low-income housing tax credit.

Which, weirdly, by the way, I just want to ask.

Wait, wait, wait.

Let me just break it. You're talking about public housing funding as opposed to the big drive

The point I think the relevant for what I understand from housing authority is that because the funds that come in are divided between the housing authority and the trust, the housing authority is a participant in the decision we're making if we make The decision to go for more cash and move up, but the projects are very different. So I just wanted to kind of excuse me, plan director.

Yeah, I was just going to make the same point Ann was about to make, which is ironically, There's more low-income housing tax credits than there have ever been before to leverage these dollars. $16 billion. Wow. Yeah.

That's stunning. Just to add to that, the volume cap has increased by the only good result on the housing world from the big beautiful bill, but I would add that it is a is probably the most competitive pipeline for affordable housing. Probably one of the biggest equity drivers that we have. So our hope is to remain competitive and get in the pipeline soon. and that's where we're sort of pushing out of the volume cap is up there's this unique time and opportunity to try to get in the pipeline and that would require obviously zoning and whether we're self-developing or co-developer on board to make it most attractive possible

So if I can recognize myself and nobody else.

I do want to follow up. You mentioned 40B. I'd love to figure out how that fits into the If that's the city building of 40B, I would love to kind of follow up with that, but not here. I don't think that's Germain, Dora, Convo. But if that's what that means, I'd love to understand that a little bit more.

We just can't build it by right at this point. The density levels we would need to really increase the housing stock would probably require a family of 48. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Barney, Laura, but that's our understanding as well.

Unless it's in VCOD. True. Then anything is there.

But you wanted to comment on that. I do have an additional question. My apologies, but I don't have a question. My apologies. So the examples that were up here, I noticed one other thing in the first chart that you put up. None of those included acquisition of land or property. And so this equation then is focused on land the city already owns or projects?

These are, with the exception of Haywood, which is which is owned by the Housing Authority, which is a public instrumentality. The rest of these are all

Correct. Those costs don't include wiring costs. Yes, they do.

They do include the total development costs. I'm sorry. and Lingo. But TDC is total development costs, which includes land, all of your hard development costs, all the soft development costs, and your fee and overhead. But didn't Golda you add it on? Golda? Probably built it.

I'd have to go back. Well, they did acquire the city water from a water tower site. So there was some acquisition there. And the armory acquisition was, of course.

I should say, my apologies. And so I'm just clarifying that just for my own edification, perhaps. But the one question that I do have is, as we kind of look at this as a multiplier, which is a crude way for me to say it because there's a lot more involved.

No, I think that's right.

Well, I mean, it is a wonderful library. There are all kinds of different components to that, but it's not one number. It's a whole bunch of things. I'm curious if, as a group, planning department has looked at, if we do this, we're going to change what we get or what we see people building. Because we know that if we were to take the seven units, right, their threshold that exists today, and we move it up or down, we know, because we've had this conversation, that we're going to modify what developers built it. And my question is, have we looked at what could happen if we did this? And I know, I remember my VCOD scars.

I know that's an almost impossible question to know what we're going to get, but I'm really curious, like what's going to happen if we did this now or

I guess the suggestion might be is that you see a lot less projects over 20 units, right? If people have the opportunity maybe to provide a cash payment, maybe it'll take it. Maybe you'll see start seeing projects in that range. 7 to 19 to 20. Correct.

Because I, you know, I know that there are a lot of moving parts here, and I'm supportive of the, like, I like the idea of a multiple model. What I'm still wrestling with is All of the projects that are listed are significantly above 20 units, some way over. And that's fine, because I know what the properties and projects. But what I am interested in, I don't know what we're going to see because of this in terms of behavior.

I think that what you're getting at is these are large projects and you know because you offer the right of making an in lieu payment to smaller projects you don't How a developer, they have to take that in lieu of payment. And so it will actually be a way to figure out, is it more advantageous for a developer to offer the unit on site. And some developers will want to do that regardless. Or is it a better business proposition for them to make it in looping? So that's, I think, what you don't know. I can tell you because as as Councilor Albright said, we have spent a year and a half looking at every single project in the city.

Which is really interesting because I would like to see that return.

And I'm happy to share as soon as I get the final sign off. I would love to share it with you. What we know is that there actually haven't been that many developments in this size. And this is not what's going to thrive. The real driver is that development expenses go down as projects get larger. There's such economies of scale. It is very difficult. to develop smaller projects at this point. And so this could be a tremendous amount of discussion with not a lot of development that comes from it. It might encourage, if it encourages more smaller infill development, that'd be terrific. That'd be terrific.

But I think that the reason you're seeing, if you have looked at the prior 10 years, you would have seen the city invested in a lot of very small projects at very high price points. At very high, where the city, and because the projects weren't able to leverage These are all projects that receive trust funds. These are all projects that receive trust funds.

The RKG did look at this in their report. And they had a chart that showed you have a steep drop off that we get right now once you get to nine units of you know all of a sudden they have they have to produce units and it as Ann said you know it the project has to be a certain size before it's worth it for them to get a unit um part of you know how we came to these numbers and it's It evens out. The drop evens out once you give them a high enough threshold that they can work with that. So it is something our KJ looked at.

That was the number four. Let's just see where we are, committee. I'd like to, let me just express my view. I've shared some of Councilor Oliver's question about what the Thank you. Thank you. She doesn't think that that's the sensitivity break. In other words, we do know that people do not want to build anything beyond six units up. Right now, because they can't bear the burden of putting in the affordable units. So it seems to me that we're not getting the affordable unit and we're not getting the money. So I'm I'm somewhat persuaded to at least try out a higher number. Whether 19 is the right number, I'm not sure.

But it seems to me that there is a higher number. And I was on the other side of Councilor Albright on the on the question about the project down at Kessler Woods because that one had been sold to us I think at the time that because it was it was housing on site I mean that was one of the inducements to have the package put together I recalled at the time so we felt that this was not a You know, the merits of what you talk about are true, but it wasn't coming out of the blue. It was coming as a trade-in. But I'd be persuaded, I think, to go with the recommendation, but I am not quite certain about the right number. Let's just see where the committee is at this point. Let me just see how many people are in favor of at least a change from the current situation.

You don't know what that would be.

All right. That's a fair question. Let's go with how many people are in favor of the proposal of the planning department at this point, which is to go to 19 without having in-kind on-site requirements.

The option. Baker is the option. provide the unit or provide them by right. They have the choice.

They have the choice.

Oh, yeah, they have a choice, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the point is, If they would have the choice, right. But I think the right now, the break point is that they effectively have to do that, I think, in order to make this happen. Afternoon. Afternoon.

Do you want to know our logic?

Well, let's just see where we are. We got three.

I don't know if that's... No, there's some there.

Councilor Kaelin?

I agree. Yeah. Yes. I'm a yes on that. We're not going to know the right number. We have to go with something, see how it does. And that's

We have a concrete proposal before us. I'm just trying to see what they're sending to the committee for. Okay. So the recommendation of the planning department, and as I assume that the housing trust and the and the Housing Authority is to modify our ordinance to allow up to 19 units. Okay. And so let's just see who's in favor of that. All right. Just a straw poll. You want to hold your hand up? Okay. One, two, three, four.

Five.

Five.

You have two online, three at the table, right?

All right. Opposed? One. Abstain? One. Two.

I'll make my proposal.

Well, we've got five in favor of what's here.

I like to take the... Condos off because we're not producing any condos. So nobody can buy into the market on the affordable units. So I'd like to take the condos out and I would like to see us paying in lieu of for units four, five, and six. And that'll bring a lot more money because that's where most of the projects are, are the smaller projects. 4, 5, 6 units.

Let's not make it too drastic.

We do 70% right now, so if we do 60% for 6 units and 50% for 5.

We have two different, we've got essentially a stronghold of 5, but I'll Entertaining comment from attorney lady

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I think I mentioned there's a two prior meetings. There's no way that we can make any ordinance amendment that requires a payment without giving the opportunity for the property owner to actually include an inclusionary unit instead of it.

We can allow them to include it too. So at four units, they can have an inclusionary unit or 40% of the 650.

now that's an illusory option because they're not they don't ever have to include the whole you know 100 unit that only starts at seven in order to make that actually work we would have to re-evaluate the whole percentage basis, so that that lower number of units at some point, if it's four, we'd have to do the calculation that the percentage of inclusionary units they'd have to provide is at least one whole one. I mean, that's the way that's currently set up. It's the way that every other municipality has it set up. And the reason is because otherwise what we're doing is Exactly kind of what's been said in this room, which is requiring these smaller developments to just pay into the into the IZ fund, or where the IZ funds go, which we can't do, and I've said it before, I'll say it definitively now, that'll constitute an illegal tax.

So why can we just charge them? They can either give us a unit at seven or only pay 70% of the 650. How is that okay?

because at seven they have the option to provide the whole unit. They have that option so then they could do the option to do that or to pay.

But can we do that at four, have the option and change our inclusionary zoning

Let me add four. We might lose projects. for five and six unit projects.

Seven units.

I think we have to change the percentage allocation.

That's not a recommendation yet before us. It doesn't mean that we can't do it in the future, but it seems to me very difficult. I'd just like to get close to I'm hearing at least five members of the committee willing to go support the recommendation of the department. So let's see where we go with the other two items and see where we end up as a result of it, because I think they're somewhat related to each other. and not completely separate. Can we take a second? You can stay for a minute.

You don't have to stay.

The party's here. You can go somewhere else if you want. Well, you don't have to stay, but this one, we have to stay. All right, Ms. Greitzer, will you remind us what the second item is?

The second item is the ELI, or the extremely low income. unit provision that requires that we also that a developer creating these units also have a contractually obligated services as part of the project. and what RKD found when they went out is that people didn't know about this, but also that people were Very unlikely that it's ever been used. Unlikely to ever use it because of the cost of having to include staff services as well as the low-income units. So our recommendation is that we remove the requirements to have the staff services and try to incentivize creating those little impairment grants.

And that means that the services, if they have these units, they've got to be provided by somebody else. Now, they don't, I mean, it's a paper requirement that's not used, so maybe it doesn't produce any services, but we just need to clarify.

I would believe the consultant on this that it would be so expensive for a small Yeah. number of units to have to provide the on-site services in perpetuity that I think we're leaving on the table a lot of development that otherwise could happen. because it would be affordable and reasonable for the developer to build those units. So I would, without hesitation, go along with doing away with the required. Anybody else on this one?

It's my fault that we didn't vote on it the other night because I was waiting to hear what Ms. Houston wanted to tell me about this particular one and I think

I think it was the elder house.

I wasn't sure which one it was, so I said both the older ones, let's hold them, so I'm fine with it. Anybody else?

So let me get a sense of the committee. Anybody want to hold on to the current requirements?

I don't hear anybody so let's assume a consensus that one can go away all right great thank you and then so the last um item for review is other other housing where um the Two things. We've removed independent living from the list of products that are eligible to use this category. and we've changed the calculation to simplify it. So we've removed, there was previously a calculation for medical expenses that was based on somewhat arbitrary decisions about how much help a person would need, what that might cost at any given time. We also simplified the calculation to be 0.5 Half of the six would be basically, to be half of what we would charge for a regular unit. We would charge for the eldest unit. The reason behind that being that

Many of these are not units in the same way that an affordable housing unit for a family is. It's a bed. And so it's a different, different standard.

Different scale, yes. Okay, everybody understand that one? Anybody?

Just a question. Yeah, answer that. Just a bit. is assisted living or independent living? Assisted. So this is assisted living, maybe nursing. That makes sense. In independent living, People have their cars. They can go out on their own. They do their own shopping. There's often... A communal dining room that they can go to for a meal or two a day.

So in the future, those projects independent living would be considered as any other project and we would If you would like to go beyond the payment, you would use the regular payment.

Yeah, yeah. I'm in agreement with that.

Anybody else? Anybody opposed to the change? OK. So let's come back to the Councilor Wright.

I have some questions outside of that, some of what's written, the actual ordinance. Do you want to go through that?

I'd like to just get clarity on these. It sounds to me like we've got Five in favor of the first item and virtually unanimous support for the other two. But we want to dispose of the item.

So let's go to you.

On section... Can you just point us a page?

I've got a printed version here, but... Well, I have... Okay, page 3176. On section 5.1, or 5.11.5, cash came at the top.

What page was on the bottom of the page?

33? 5-11-5. Ash, Payne, and Optioned. First thing on that last part, 2.3, I think, or 3, what it is, It says, and the purpose of this, and it doesn't go anywhere. It's lost. So that doesn't go to the next page or the next page. So I don't know what that sentence says or does. I'm sorry, did you? Where is that again? The absolute last sentence on that page. The balance of the crossed out, and at the end it says, and the purpose of this, and there's nothing.

So I have the clean version. It's the purpose of this. We are missing a word here. Section 5.11. Oh, so it's the next page.

So it's the purpose of this Section 5.11. Okay. To me, it didn't make sense. So this is the cash payment in lieu of for other projects more than 19, which I think this is stating. And one of the things is, one of the reasons why we can approve it by special permit is the current balance of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. And that's it. So if there's $20 million in there, we can

get the IZ unit someone you know get an IZ payment instead of having the units and stuff I don't agree with that so I believe so this is the provision that discusses eliminating units from any project yes similar to what The current Dudley Road project is requesting. Yes. So we left this, and Barna correct me if I'm wrong, I believe we left this largely intact from what it had been pre in the prior ordinance. It was recommended that we be more specific and we decided having more flexibility for the council to make the determination. Right. So this is we've just left this as is. And that might not be something that

I would rather see it on a number of projects, a number of units. Again, I'm worried that we're going to get into, you know, affordable units in one part of the city or one building and not in other parts and I like to and would be as more of a segregated city so I like seeing affordable units in the projects and so this right here is pretty hard.

So I think the intent is to list a few things that the council might want to take into account if they're considering allowing a project to do this. But by no means is this something that you have to follow. You can use other criteria. You can make that decision. But it's entirely up to the council as to whether a project meets provides a great enough benefit to allow.

I think we have that. But it still has to come in and satisfy us that it works.

That's his prologue. And I think the idea is that if we put that The reference to the trust fund, that might be something the council was just to consider. It might not. And you may have other things that you want to look at.

Okay. And then on that same page under D at the top of the page.

Which page again?

Same page.

533, I'm just wondering.

5-33, yeah.

Okay.

So under rental and D.1, you talk about parking spaces that... Is that included in there? Because now we allow buildings to be built and there's one that's going to be built with no parking at all. So should that be?

parking if provided maybe instead of requiring a parking because what are you going to do if a project does not have a parking we do not require i'm so i'm sorry i'm still looking is it section

Is that the time of that 5-33?

Monthly housing costs and they include that in there. I've only got so much time.

Attorney Lee might want to weigh in on that one too. Thank you.

It includes parking spot, but some units won't have time. Okay, rental.

So which section are we looking at right now? I'm looking at D1. This is D1.

This is in the red line. This is in the red line version. And it's on page 533. at the top of the page in the attachment to the agenda.

5.11.4 D1. D1.

And it has it in both the rental and the home ownership parts.

The only reason I'm not sure you need a change, it just says that are offered to tenants in the building. You know, it says one parking space. There's no parking space offered that I don't think you counted.

That's been how we've interpreted it. to date is if there's no units, if there's no parking provided, then there's no unit.

And then my next question then under the home ownership inclusionary units the monthly housing costs inclusive of mortgage principal interest and homeowners association condo and homeowners association fees in one parking space must not exceed 30% of the applicable. So what happens, condos fees are kind of A wild thing. And so what happens when it starts exceeding that 30%?

So that can be a challenge for the homeownership units. And we did let go of a unit that was affordable last year because the It was an older condo association, older houses, and the condos were getting out of control. That is all worked out as a starting place. That's how we price the units based on all of those expenses. But you're right, we have little control over the condo prices going up and that can be a challenge.

So once you let that go, did you get money for that?

We did. We got payback. So in that case, we had used CPA funds from the former down payment program that had existed a few years ago. So when it came up for resale and we evaluated and realized this would not be a good unit to put someone back in because of the challenging additional costs, we got our money back. from it, and they made whatever profit they made selling it on the market. It's no longer affordable.

Yes. So let it go. You sold it, market value, put some money back into the

Well, in this case, it went back to the CPA, which I think actually ultimately gave it to the trust. But that was the vehicle that we had used at the time. We used the CPA program to fund it. But yeah, absolutely.

Housing just went through the CPA and back.

The housing restriction has a recapture clause that goes over if for whatever reason this is not working out, this is how we get our funds back.

Got it. Thank you.

Did not know that. Wright, anything else?

I had a question. And this may be totally just doesn't matter, but in the red line version of the chart that has the different 15% and so forth for Tier 1 and Tier 2. The chart that's in the red line version doesn't have Tier 2 in it. I don't know if anybody's going to see this red line version besides us. So the rental, are you looking at the rental chart?

So that no longer would have a Tier 2?

No, I know it doesn't, but there's no... Deletion of the 80 to 110 percent, that doesn't exist in that chart. So if anybody wanted to see the red line version, that line isn't there.

Well, OK, yeah, I think I know it was. We were having challenges editing the tables.

If it's a table and you're using redlining, it doesn't work.

You should put a note there that this doesn't exactly reflect The red line is no longer shows the red line option, but yes.

And a lot of tables are pictures, not even data. The other thing I'd like to discuss and what we said it was, well, we took, I think, a strong vote, is to remove the 110% AMI units from the ownership. which is our missing middle. And this is what we want. We want missing middle condos. And so removing that, we're taking that away. How are we producing missing middle Well, the current draft leaves that.

Yeah, they left the middle.

You need two tiers for ownership, just one tier for rent. Yeah, but I'd like to see it down. You jumped up to, what, 20 units or whatever? Where was it? That you had to jump.

Well, it'll jump up with the rest of the... It goes up with the rest of it. With the rest of it. It mirrors the rental one. Okay.

I share your desire here, but I think the baggage we've got is enough to get done if we can do it. That's a bad metaphor.

We will be back in a few years to look at this again. Come back to any of these issues.

Yeah, I actually wanted to pick up on what Council Oliver was saying that, in fact, you know, rather than waiting for that five year look back, you know, to maybe even make it three years. so that then you know we're beyond it isn't it's required but I also think that you know just even seeing the impact of these revisions I don't know if that's appropriate.

Thank you, but you don't want to docket it because it'll die by the end of the next term. It might be docketed at the end of the term.

You can certainly do it at three years or five years. I do think we need enough time to get projects underway under this and see what happens. This process has taken over a year. So whenever we started, if we started three years, it's probably going to be three years by the time we're all done. So starting in January. So starting any day now, right.

We'll see this movie again.

I'm sorry, if I could add one more thing that wasn't on our previous list. I'd like to note the effective date.

Yeah.

Who's their name? OK, that was in the red line version. We've recommended January 1st, 2026 as an effective date.

Is that going to be enough? I don't want another phone call from councilor.

Can I just be late? What happened at land use the other night? Mark Development was asked what they're going to do and I was explaining that we're changing the inclusionary zoning and he thought that 18.5% was too high and he was going to stick with the way it is now. because he didn't want to go to the 18.5%. I thought that was really interesting. I don't know if that's what he's going to stick with, but.

Well, so, but you were comfortable, we were all comfortable with January 1st on this one.

because they have a choice.

Yeah, they got a choice. Yeah. So let's see where we are now. Wright, I appreciate your attention and detail. Have we cooked it enough for you? Yes. Okay. But I really do. You know, reading the lines is important to do. So let's applaud that. All right. So I think we've had a strong vote. Let's see if we can take the whole package, all three changes. Let's see who's in favor. All in favor will say aye. Aye. How many of you just hold your hands up so I can get it? Five. Okay. Opposed? Abstention? Okay, that's a rousing decision. However, now, this is going to go to the committee.

We've got a couple of other items I just want to make sure that we have your report in addition. that you have and we also have the question of whether we should have any training, I would hope that the authors of that item would be willing to let that go. And we just go with Ms. Houston's report. But let's see about this item. We've got this item. I think we've done it now. Is there anything left over, Ms. Kreutzer, on this?

That closes the...

Okay, now this one is going to be... This one is going to be... Ms. Holden is sitting here very patiently and with Otter AI Plus and artificial intelligence, I dare say I don't know how she's going to write a report. And I don't know how the planning department is going to give me a summary that is going to make this easy for our colleagues to understand but I hope that both of those things will happen all right but because this is one I would hopefully don't get into the weeds on the council floor Boy, there are plenty of weeds to get into, but nonetheless, so we've done that. So let's go on to Ms. Houston. Let me just read that item into the record so that we can, if you can add anything you want to to that and we can. This is an update on the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust. Anything you want to say that you haven't said so far?

I'm going to be really brief. And if you'd like, I'd be happy to send you a memo. that might actually cover it too. This report that we're hearing is coming anyway. That was actually a task force across the but the city's citizen commissions, the partners will have the Fair Housing Commission, the trust and housing authority that we really wanted to dig in and understand what do we have and what do we need in affordable housing? So I'd love to be able to share that with you and I think it will be signed off and blessed and ready to release very shortly. So here's the really, Boykin, Dirty on the Trust. As I mentioned, we've done three projects over the really slightly more than three years that we've been in existence, one a year.

We focused on trying to do projects with enough scale so that we could really leverage our dollars with a couple of other public dollars. And I think we've been quite successful in doing that. That's been great. we've been able to move very nimbly to take advantage of projects that both the Navigation Center that came in with enormous state funding enormous state funding compared to our little $500,000, but that the state really needed to see that the city was going to stand with the navigation center with family aid. and the other one was this NOAA project that that when residential has just purchased this property that but for their being able to put together in In really very short time, the funding

to purchase the property, it would have turned into luxury housing. That's what happened to the city, almost identical property across the street. So we were able to preserve affordability in 112 units that will, 30 of them will be deeply affordable and the balance will be affordable at that 110%, which is a real, and That value will only grow over time. So I think those are real examples of how the trust has been able to move very quickly. We spent all of our money We're just waiting anxiously for your approval that we got. So we have $2 million now. I think we have more than that in requests that we think we'll be getting soon for some really nice housing.

So and that's really what we've been doing and we've been talking with developers and we've been working with staff to think about how do we encourage the right kind of affordable housing to meet Newton's need. The other thing we did, we stepped back and we said, all right, we've done three projects. We've really learned. We have to revise our application because we really wanted to make sure that we're being very careful stewards of the city's funding. So that was the other thing we did this year. I can provide more details or answer questions, but that's the five minute, and there's still one minute before 10 a.m. That sounds fine to me, but county colleagues? So those units you're talking about, those were on North Street?

Because we were getting Goodson Ward 3, and the prior owners were on upping people's rents, $1,200 type things. And I mean, people were in tears because they'd been there for so long. They couldn't find any place to live in Newton. They had kids in Newton and all that others too. I remember you're saying that before and it just reinforced how important it is that we preserve these resources because the longtime owner had been Such a good landlord. And it's kind of neglecting. Complaints too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think that Wynn will be a good owner. You know, important always with big developers, big owners to always be sure that you let them know if you have any concerns and they'll be responsive.

But they do also, just to the residents actually offer some really best and best practice resident services. And so that's part of the package that you get with Duane.

If there are no other questions, I'm going to cancel again.

The only piece is that I would love for the two committees to meet, the two committees to have a session together, because I sort of feel as if there's a wealth of information that happens during the Affordable Housing Trust meetings. that I sort of feel just getting the report. And I know that in watching, I'm learning a lot, but I'm also realizing that I'd love to be able to interpret and understand where you see the city of Newton going in terms of the investments as well as there's quite a bit of projected what the projects that we have right now. and how the categories they've fallen into because apparently there's quite a bit of elder housing and where you would like to do, you know, project and see the need and fulfill those needs, you know. And we're also always available to talk offline.

I'm going to resist having a joint meeting because I'm looking at the calendar with my vice chair. I'm even thinking in the next... Well, who knows what's going to happen in the next year. but that's a fair question but I'll defer that but at least in this term if you don't mind I want to make sure we get through the The dance steps we've got to get through. So I entertain a motion. I think we need this beginning item. So we hold this one. Okay, from time to time. Now it will die and then have to be redacted. That's 7224, it's on page two. So I'll entertain a motion to hold. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Okay. Now, the 4524 Discussion of Amendment to Inclusionary Zoning to Include Training.

Folks, if anybody wants to do this, that entertains, then I would like to move NAN on this item.

I'll move NAN.

Okay. All those in favor say aye. Extension. Okay, the ayes have it. And the last item is not one that bothers you, but you're done. Do you want to say anything about this? No, I don't want to say anything. and this is 24-24 discussion of amendments relating to aiding small business impacted by development. We've been working on this. We're going to take up the parking issue shortly. Um, so I would ask if there's a motion to any, but, um, we can hold it, but we're not going to.

This item, the way it's written, was Somerville buying a bunch of properties. Do we do something to help mitigate the cost of displaced businesses? And we have been up and down this one, I think.

The question is, where is the funding going to come from?

Well, we can end it.

It could be brought back if you've got it.

I'm just going to... that's going to develop the Rice Valley Building and their state funds for the MBTA Communities Act area to help displace Yes.

For 100% affordable properties.

Oh, for 100% affordable.

That's the way of deciding.

Yeah. Okay. On that particular project, there's federal funds. Anytime you use federal dollars to acquire existing businesses, You have to come up with a relocation slash displacement plan and pay some amount of money to the businesses.

Does that go for tax credit projects as well?

Anytime you have federal funds. Okay. just like if there were people living in it and they had to be evicted.

So the developer pays or is there? I was on the question of state funds.

It didn't sound like development. It's the developer pays. The developer pays. Now, where do they get the money from? It's the furniture development budget.

This is all a reaction to the old urban renewal displacement project. That's correct.

But it sounded like the developers.

I'm old enough to remember that.

Me too. No, the money would be there, but it was other state or federal money. So we need to find out more.

Anyway. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Before we adjourn, did you have anything you can ask? I want to thank the planning director and the Houston for speaking it out with us and our colleagues. Councilor Krentzman, is there any chance you would like to make a motion? Thank you all. We need to depend on you and the person in power of the chair to not sound like he doesn't know anything, but he does.