Zoning & Planning Committee - November 24, 2025

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and so on.

Hello, everybody. Let's see. We're almost ready to go. Katie, are you ready? Are you on, ready to record?

I'm ready, yep.

Okay.

Recording in progress.

So good evening, everyone. Wait until we hit exactly seven o'clock.

Lion, we don't see you.

That's puzzling. You're striped blue. That's puzzling. Let me try again.

You disappeared again.

That is weird. I can, I can, let me close this down if that makes a difference. I'm plugged into my, I can, you can hear me all right, right?

Oh, yeah.

This is strange. This is the problem of operating in the home environment. I will try again on a different computer. Let's see if this works.

Yeah, something might be wrong with your camera.

Yeah. That's odd.

We saw you at the beginning, I thought.

Oh, that was my picture, I think.

No, no, we saw you at the beginning.

Oh, okay. That's, that's downright weird. Um, okay, okay, right, that should do it. All right. I mean, a puzzling position of being invisible but audible.

Yeah, it's okay. You can probably do it that way.

As long as you all are comfortable with that. I mean, and wait a minute.

There you are. Whoops. Your camera is trying hard.

It's trying hard. Come on, camera. Do something. All right. Cutting in and out. All right, folks, let's not hold up the show. And if you're willing to let me talk as opposed to be visible. This is a meeting of the Zoning and Planning Committee This is an unusual meeting in the sense that it's virtual and you can see now I'm visible. I don't know exactly how this works.

Don't talk about it. You look good. Don't jinx it.

Don't do anything. All right. But I'm Lyle Baker. I'm chair of the committee and present at the start of the meeting. We have our colleagues and I will try and recognize people as I see them on the screen. Albright, Ward 2, Vicki Danberg is here, but I don't see her, but I see her name, and Councilor Josh Krintzman, Ward 4, Vicki Danberg, Ward 6. Vice President of the Council David Kalis, Warren Aid, Vice Chair Councilor Oliver. We are joined also I think by The problem is my screen keeps saying who's getting admitted, but Katie, you manage that. Councilor Wright, also joined by from the Planning Department, Barney Heath, the Director, Ms. Kreitzer, and Zachary LeMell. And let's see, have I missed anybody? Councilor Block is not a member of the committee but joined us.

and I think that I've got everybody that I can see. So thank you all. This is an experiment in that this is an all virtual meeting. In other words, we're not in part in the Many room as we normally are, but this is the Monday before Thanksgiving and we have two items before us. And I hope we can make sense of them relatively quickly. And let me just indicate the two items are 275 24-2, which is the discussion of amendments to Chapter 30 to allow certain routine residential alterations by right. specifically to allow additions to buildings with existing non-conforming height that increase the non-conforming height but do not go higher than the existing ridge line This item was recommitted and I was the person that asked for it to be recommitted and I'll explain my rationale in a minute. but the other item is 4424.

These are the inclusionary zoning ordinance and I think it's fair to say that we are in accord on almost everything but there was one amendment that We did not consider in committee that Councilor Wright wanted to propose at the floor of the council. And because it had not been discussed, in committee. I thought it would be appropriate to accept it if she moved to recommittal and so the council voted that and so we will discuss that. And those are the only two items on the agenda. We have some other items coming up in The next meeting where we will discuss climate action and then also some leftover items that I don't expect us to tackle this term that we need to NAN, but I'm not going to try and do those tonight. So let me explain, if we can, then, the rationale for the first one and ask for some discussion. Then I'll tell you what I would propose. This item, I think, is meritorious.

This is the idea of allowing nonconforming buildings to be altered as of right. We also received an email today from Jay Walter from the Building Professionals and I commit everyone's attention to that. That indicates support for that item, but also to look at another iteration of it in the future, but that's not before us. The reason that this was concerned to me is that the The example we had was one project, and I didn't know how many of these have come up. But the context of it that I thought was important to understand is that the normal height rules, because we've modified our hard rules to say that the height is measured from the finish grade, rather than from the previous grade rather than the finished grade could produce a potential hardship to a property owner who is on a sloping lot. And the example given was the Lincoln Street project.

The planning department prepared a memo in response which basically summarized what they'd indicated before but I want to indicate what I would, unless Mr. LaMelle would like to take us through that again, I think we all have seen that and unless he needs to, explain what I would like to see us consider and that is that the context is where the project is such that the height can't be met appropriately because of sloping Terrain. And it seemed to me that that's precisely the situation that we ought to have some potential special permit oversight or at least some additional protection in terms of setback for an abutter because the abutter is most likely to be even further downhill from the proposed addition and therefore the addition will loom

More large than it would otherwise and therefore it seemed to me I would like to vote for this item but I would like to do it with some sense that there are an additional protection for those property owners. and one of the things that occurred to me is to just say that for those situations to apply at least the the setbacks that would apply to new lots in that particular zoning district would apply In this case, in order to trigger the as of right relief, if there were anything otherwise, it could obviously go to special permit. And these are relatively rare situations anyway, so I think the special permit could still be appropriate, but that's where I am. but I wanna see where other people are on the committee. I see Councilor Oliver's hand and Councilor Albright's hand, I believe.

Excuse me. Apologies, Councilor Baker, but you mentioned we have an email from or letter from Mr. Walter. I don't have that.

I just saw something this afternoon. It's not formally part of this record. I just wanted to acknowledge it's not a public hearing.

I can forward it to you, Councilor Oliver. We got it late this afternoon. I'll forward it to you.

Yeah, please do. I really don't. Hmm. Me no guts. I don't see it.

You weren't on the email.

Okay, now I'm offended.

I'm, I'm, I'm I rarely get email myself that I can read, so that's a whole other story. Okay, did you have any substantive comment, Councilor Oliver, on the question?

I don't know. I thought that comment was fairly substantive, but other than that, no.

No, I mean on the idea.

No, not at this point.

Okay. Okay. Councilor Albright and then Councilor Danberg.

Thank you. So my question to Zach is, is the actual height of the building changing or is it just because of the slope? It's changing because it's measured from a different slope.

The actual height of the building is not changing in that it's not allowed to go above the existing ridgeline. But there would be an addition that is extending outward that wasn't there before.

So how high could an addition be?

So the way that the language is written is that the addition can't go any higher than the existing ridgeline. And so In theory, the only homes that are taller than 36 feet are allowed to utilize this, so somewhere above 36 feet. However, in practice, Given what's happening in this situation is that you're applying an addition to a portion of the property where it's sloping away is The other rules and regulations within zoning really come into play here. FAR, lock coverage, setbacks. um number of stories right so I think really what ends up happening in this situation is that the if in essence the addition really cannot go up to the ridge line um it because almost

in any given situation, that would create more than two and a half stories. Because potentially taking the basement, which is not considered a story, and making that, from a zoning perspective, the first floor. And that's not allowed as part of this. And so what you typically what you see are these kind of subordinate additions of one to one and a half stories.

Okay, that was my only question. And I'm satisfied with the ordinance as it exists. And I know a number of us wanted to apply it to buy right housing as well. So I guess we're not going to do that tonight. but I'm satisfied. Thank you.

Councilor Danberg.

Yes, thank you. Thank you for calling on me. I'm just looking at some notes that I had here. I think that this is a good change. I can see that there could easily be a problem if the building is on a slope because if the slope slopes down, for example, The person would be penalized and not able to go up as high on the rear of the building, let's say, as they could. if we gave them the benefit of the doubt and allowed it to be taller because we are measuring it from a new grade as opposed to the original grade. So I don't have a problem with this.

I think that I would be prepared to move it, move approval. When the time comes.

Okay, Councilor Wright.

Thank you. Yes, kind of addressing Councilor Albright's and Mr. LaMalle's comments and stuff. So I mean, technically, a house could be 10 feet taller, but like Mr. LaMalle, said, um, then you got, you know, three stories and FAR, and then you got to take in the basement and all that is going to come into effect. Um, So I think you won't get that drastic change, you know, a few inches, a foot, whatever, but not real drastic ones. Or they wouldn't be able to do it unless a special permit. and um yeah I did see just before this meeting Mr. Walters um Email, which would be nice to get it a day before, just before the meeting. And we've gotten some letters on, I think people were just like two inches off or three inches off and

and they have to do a special permit which I think is kind of ridiculous when you're you know doing something especially it's just inches um but it's not part of this so is it that we won't and this is back to the chair We won't be able to bring that up until next year.

No, no. Leaving aside the as a right, just this item will come out on Monday.

Yeah, but I mean, as a right ones, you know, we can't do that.

That we have to wait on.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, for next year?

Yeah, somebody could docket the item and then we could take it up then.

Okay, because I mean, What this is addressing, I think, is fewer than the by right instances.

Yeah, no, it's clearly a non-conforming structure. Mr. LaMelle, you want to add anything?

I was going to just say two other points, but I can save them until it's not specifically related to this.

Unless somebody else has something to say.

Well, I was going to just say two other pieces that I would mention is that before the height was measured changed. What would end up happening in this scenario is the person would build out their addition to the setback line. and if there was a lot of grade they'd build retaining walls and they'd build retaining walls at the property line you know up to four feet tall right and that would be by right or they would have been just at the edge of the of the setback line and built up There's no incentive to do that anymore. So I think the addition here, which again is very, very limited in nature, is going to have to be done without this series of retaining walls. Or there's no incentive to do any series of retaining walls. And then the second piece is particularly when it comes to the side.

is that the facade ratio was approved recently. And so if that mass, if that side addition is up front of the house, you also have to run it, you run into the facade ratio requirements. And so either A, If it's over one and a half stories, then that 60% gets triggered maximum. So that'll limit it. And then the second piece is that if They want to avoid that 60%. Then the addition they're adding will have to be one and a half stories or less. So kind of inherently less intensive to the neighboring property.

All right, that's helpful. Anyone else that should be heard? I don't hear a lot of support for amending this further, so I'm not going to move my amendment. I'm just going to ask for Councilor Danberg to make her motion.

I move that we approve.

Thank you. And our colleagues, thank you for indulging me about this because I want to make sure we don't create an unintended consequence. But I'm somewhat reassured by what Mr. LaMelle has indicated in additional protections. So. Okay, all those in favor will say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? The ayes have it. Thank you very much. Okay, the item's approved. And then we'll send it back out to committee, excuse me, the full council on Monday. The second item is 4424 This is the inclusionary zoning and there is an attachment in the packet that consists of the memorandum from the planning department that explains all of the changes we've made. And again, this is a very complicated process we all know very well because we participated in it but now we come to the last outstanding question which we had not discussed and that involves the question of the contribution neither in kind as of Wright within a certain size threshold.

So I'm going to ask if Councilor Wright would just explain her item I've asked the planning department for a comment and then asked Councilor Wright to explain the rationale for her item. I just want to make sure everybody is clear on what she wants to propose. So if you don't mind, Councilor Wright, taking it at two stages, and then you can take it from there. Is that agreeable?

OK, so what I was proposing, so the changes to the IZ right now in lieu of is seven to nine units. And then above that, we're requiring requiring units to be built on site. And so this new, our changes to the IZ when we reviewed it is to make that in lieu of payment instead of seven to nine to go to seven to 19. for both rentals and for ownership. And I would like to see just rentals and not ownership. And the main reason is that um the money that goes from in lieu of goes to the housing trust and and somewhere else and and to build more affordable housing but they're only building affordable rental housing so we're going to lose

you know ownership at that bottom end of the market where you know Even some of our counselors would probably be able to possibly get a condo at 80% AMI, family of four of 132,000, A two-bedroom would be $284,000. Okay, okay, that's it. Yeah, so I just wanna get rid of the, I wanna take out the seven, leave seven to nine for ownership and then expanded for rentals to 19.

So the committee report originally would be stay for the rental, but you would committee report for the ownership units. Okay. Is that? Yes. I want to ask the planning department to have any comment. Mr. Eath or Ms. Kreutzer is here also. We've also joined, I should indicate, by Councilor Farrell, not a member of the committee, but welcome, and also Peter Dorringer from the planning board. And then I'll recognize Councilor Albright after I hear from Planning Department. But I want to give Councilor Wright a full opportunity to explain it and then we'll discuss it. So I'll go back to her. But Mr. Heath?

I think Laura's going to respond first.

Oh, okay. Ms. Kreitzer?

Thank you. I think our preference is to keep it consistent and the same for both rental and ownership. Part of the reason of that is that I think we do not want to encourage the creation of one type of universe versus another. And my personal concern is that if we set a lower threshold of nine units for ownership units, that will discourage developers from doing ownership and that we're only going to have rental units going forward. So I think it could actually have the effect of the opposite effect that's intended here that more I also just wanted to note, I think you mentioned that the funding to the trust is only for rental housing, and there is no requirement that it only be used for rental housing. To date, that's what we've done.

That's no reason we couldn't do ownership in the future if that kind of project came in and was something that the city thought would be helpful.

Okay, so I want to thank you very much. Any further comment from the planning department? Kreutzer, we welcome your colleague. Thank you. Councilor Wright, do you want to just finish any further explanation you want to make and then we'll come to other people on the committee?

Yes, so I want to address two of those, and it is correct. It's not limiting the partnership to just rentals, but that's all they've done in the past is rentals, and they have quite a few of those. and I don't want to lose the ownership part. But when a developer comes in, They're either going to build for rentals or for sale. A developer comes in who just build condos and they're for sale. That's all they do. They don't want to take on the burden of managing a property. So I think if we limited it down to nine for ownership, I don't think that's going to make a difference. for the amount of developers for ownership for rentals because it's two different types of developers. It's not the same ones. And again,

There's not a lot of ownership possibilities in that price range as it is in the city and cutting it off. I mean, and Mr. Heath has said in the past is that generally developers are, you know, are going to take The in lieu of very seldom do we get a unit instead of the payment. So we are going to lose a lot more ownership units in the city. We're building, there is building quite a few rentals in the city, so I'm not worried about that, but I'm worried about the ownership possibilities.

Thank you. Thank you. Let me go to now members of the committee. Councilor Albright. I think Councilor Danberg was first, but I'll be... No, the problem is that my screen is not picking up all everybody. It just says somebody raised hand, so I can't quite see who it's who.

OK, happy to go first. So I looked at the list of housing on the SHI, and there are very, very, very few. that are in the 7 to 19 category. I think there are seven of them, if I remember correctly at all. And and I think only one of them was ownership. There were some other ownerships, but they were all by the Home Buyer Assistance Program. There was only one that was ownership. So I don't think we're losing anything. In fact, we might be gaining something if we do it the other way, because maybe the Maybe this is blocking people creating seven to 19 unit projects. and maybe by having this in lieu thing, maybe we'll get more of them, who knows? But even so, we weren't getting very many ownership units, only one as I recall

So I really think this is something worth trying.

Okay. Thank you. Let me go. I'm having an order. I've got Councilor Danberg, Councilor Kalis, and then Councilor Oliver. Councilor Danberg.

Thank you, Chair Baker. I agree with everything that that both Ms. Kreitzer and Albright have said. And in addition to that, I'd like to bring up, actually, Councilor Wright. We just began a discussion actually of the, Councilor Wright, of the The issue of property management. When these units are built, and they're built, let's say, one here, one there, one somewhere else and they're scattered all over the city in small buildings where there's only one, maybe two affordable units. It becomes...

An enforcement nightmare because the city is responsible, if you will remember, for enforcing and keeping track of all the paperwork. And we don't have staff for that. It becomes a real problem for the staff to try and enforce this year after year when these units are scattered all over the city. If, however, there are more units in one building, it's much easier to enforce and to keep track of. There's also another issue that I would bring up about ownership in addition to the fact that we're not getting a lot of ownership properties because developers are keeping it under a certain number because it behooves them to do that. Remember that

When Anne Houston spoke to us at the last meeting, she reminded us that the Housing Authority and the Housing Trust prefer

Thank you.

that the developers give payment in lieu because if the developer is going to build one, and let's say it costs $650,000 to build because that's the number, If that 650,000 that would build one unit were given to the city instead and split between the two groups, That money can be leveraged from, she said, seven to 10 times. So we could get many more units and would be able to build many more units. then if we were just to get the one unit that was required to be built by the developer. I just think it's a no-brainer if we're trying to get as many and many more.

So the more money that's in the coffers toward matching funds, the more units we can get. There's another issue in ownership, and that is that If there is, let's say there is a seven unit building and it's got six market rate units and one inclusionary unit. The price has been low. Let's say the person bought it for $285,000. And let's say that the monthly fee is kept low. There's going to come a time when all the owners want to get together because they need to do upgrades. They need to paint the building. They need to, they want to do upgrades in the garage or spend some money for other things in the building.

The other six people are going to have easier access to means to be able to do that and it will become a hardship for the person with the inclusionary unit very often. and that person cannot afford to do what what the other six people are asking for. So we're in a way setting ourselves up for a a problem and conditions that, sorry about my dog, conditions that are gonna be made difficult for that person in the inclusionary unit. Whereas if it's in a building with a number of units, it's much easier to control that. So I will stop there and go on silent so that my dog won't

At least, at least, Councilor Danberg, your dog is at home. The last time we talked about your dog, it was out and you were chasing it. But I think that was a while back. Anyway. Kalis, I have, and then let's see, I've got Councilor Oliver, then Councilor Block, and coming back to Councilor Wright.

Thank you, Chair. Very quickly, I think this is worth trying. I do hear what Councilor Wright is saying about these homeowners versus rentals, so I would support the motion.

You mean her amendment, right?

Her amendment, yeah, thank you.

Oliver.

Great. Thank you again, Chair. So I concur with Councilors Kalis and Wright, which is why I voted to not support this particular, or because I was supportive of this, I did not vote for the full IZ before I went to council. There are a couple of things that concern me. and I recognize that Councilor Danberg is where she's coming from with her comment recently, most recently about the the IZ unit owners inability perhaps to cover the full HOA monthly but I'd rather just deal with what's in front of us like that that seems incredibly anecdotal and maybe if come kind of situation so

In my mind, I can't consider that to be real until it is, until we have hard evidence there. I also heard from Miss Kreutzer, you know, The housing trust and the housing authority, if there were some Guaranty or some way for us to, and I'm not advocating for this. I'm just going to say that right up front. I'm not advocating for this, but because the city hasn't built any or many ownership units. I think that that's a pattern. And from my perspective, we are seeing predominantly You know, rental units being built in the city. And fine, great, super. I want to see a balance.

I want to see us get at that. You know, when I was first elected to the city council, that was one of the big topics that we wrestled with was starting to create opportunities for intergenerational wealth. Well, here we go. Home ownership is a really big deal. on that particular topic. I continue to be incredibly supportive of this amendment, i.e. Council Rights Amendment. And the last point I really wanted to make is, and I don't want to lose sight of this, and I forget who pointed it out originally. It might have been Councillor Wright, it might have been myself, it might have been Councillor Getz. The math that was presented to us by Ms. Houston included some numbers that were not apples to apples. In other words, I'm just going to come right out and say it.

I do not believe in the mathematics behind that multiplier number. I think there's a multiplier. But I think the math that we were shown there was unpersuasive because it glossed over some really important facts, in my opinion. And for that reason, I'm going to continue to support leaving the ownership unit threshold where we are today, which is nine units. Thank you.

Thank you. I recognize Councilor Block and I'll come back to you, Councilor Wright.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate. a chance to comment. I want to raise a different balance question than what Councilor Oliver was talking about, and that's the distribution of our affordable housing units. I did an analysis of where these are by ward. It's kind of hard to do it by neighborhood since one can dispute neighborhood boundaries. and I submitted this to the Affordable Housing Trust several months ago. 28% of our affordable housing units are in Ward 1, 22% in Ward 4, then there's a big drop off. among all the other wards. And it feels more comfortable to me that we should accept whenever possible

units from developers so that we don't tilt our own efforts in the direction of the least expensive land in Newton because that is very likely going to further concentrate the affordable housing units. And I think it's just a matter of principle that all neighborhoods should participate in this. Ideally, equally, that's never going to happen. But I don't think as a policy matter, we should do anything that would further concentrate The percentage of units that we have.

And I just ask that the committee consider that when they make their judgments about what the cutoff should be for cashing out. versus not cashing out. And that's the particular issue that's in front of you. I fully understand it would be nice to have more cash to work with, and I support that in principle, but I'm not sure this is the best way to do it. So that's just my comment on this. Thank you.

Thank you and thank you for being willing to come to our committee and express your views. We appreciate that. Councilor Wright, I see two other hands up that I'd like to answer and then come back to you if that's all right. Ms. Councilor Albright and then Ms. Kreitzer.

So I was just trying to count the number of properties on the SHI. I think there are, I don't know, Ms. Kreitzer and Mr. Heath, you probably know this better than I do. It looked like there's about 110 roughly. I was trying to count the lines quickly. and only one of them is home ownership between seven and 19 units. So we don't have a lot of these. We haven't produced very many of these. If we were trying to make this more of a thing, then maybe an incentive program is what we should be looking for. But I don't think we're going to get very many of these, if any. and the money could go into a better cause or a more fruitful cause. The other thing I wanted to say is that and Ms. Kreitzer or Mr. Heath, you can probably talk about this better than I can.

When you have an affordable unit that you own, you don't benefit from all the equity that goes with the unit. You're limited to a certain increase above that because it's an affordable unit. So it's not like we're doing a whole bunch of good for a lot of people. because they're not going to gain the equity that you might gain if you own your house and if it was $500,000 yesterday and A million dollars, you benefit from the whole 500,000. Affordable homeowners don't get that kind of benefit from the equity. Ms. Kreitzer, if you speak next, maybe you could explain that better than I can.

Thank you, Councilor. Ms. Kreitzer.

Thank you. Yes, you're absolutely right. So when we put an affordable housing restriction on a property, on a condo unit, say for a household, it includes a calculation of how the next sale price will be determined. and it allows for some equity, but it also has to keep the unit affordable to the next person who's buying. So it's not going to meet what the market is doing right now. I would say it's, What it does give is security in knowing what your bills are in a way that rental units aren't always able to do. But you're right, you don't get the same equity at the end of the day. I also wanted to point out, well, the SHI has almost everything we have in the city, particularly home buyer units, which were done by, KANDU did a lot of them, a lot of smaller organizations.

You have to be very careful in how you market and how you do your lotteries. And SHI didn't always let us include everything that we have. So there are units in the city that aren't on the SHI. that we're still working to get added on as they come up for resales. But to your point, we do have a far fewer of them than we do of rental units. The other thing I just wanted to mention is Tessa Wright had mentioned most developers kind of know what they want to do. What we've found recently in particular is that a lot of developers are changing their mind over the course of the project. It starts as rental. They consider ownership. They go back and forth. So it's not always a given how it's going to be done when it gets permitted. Some have come back and gotten permission to change it. We have homeownership units coming online soon on Walnut Street in the Newton Highlands. We had some that just came in line in the beacon.

I know Walnut Street is one of those ones that changed their mind about it several times before deciding to be ownership. And I guess that's, for me, that's an example where I'm If we change the calculation to be different for rental than ownership, that probably would have impacted what they decided to do.

Okay. Anyone else? I want to go back to Councilor Wright and then I'll Wright, and then I'll go to Councilor Oliver.

Okay, thank you. A quick question to Ms. Kreiser. Were there any changes I could see going from rental to ownership, but were there projects that went from ownership to rentals?

That's a good question. I'll have to check. I know that the two that have been done most recently ended up as ownership units, but we could check and see. A lot of these were, you know, of course, permitted a couple years ago before I was as involved in the program as I am now. So I could check in on that.

Yeah, because again, I think you know it's easier I mean so I own units and being a landlord there's a lot to go into that and most people don't want to do that you know and with the ownership you build them you sell them they're gone you know type of thing so I can see you know going from a rental and you're willing to do a rental and all the headaches that go with that to ownership but going the other way I don't think that happens very often. Yeah, I was surprised by Councilor Albright that we had so few because I know there is a bunch of other ones there that, like you said, Ms. Kreiser, that aren't on the SHI or, you know, there's not a lot of... You don't really see that. So I wanted to address a couple of things from Councilor Danberg.

And I totally understand about the property management for the rentals, and that has to be done every year. and but for ownership it's only done when it's sold and yes people aren't going to make as much money equity in it as Market rate houses, but there will make some. And there are also, again, HUD is determining what the price is when they sell it, you know, a couple of years down the road or 10 years down the road. but also their money is going towards buying down their mortgage too versus kind of throwing it away at rent. So there is some equity, but not as much as you know, as much as houses have increased here in the recent past. And what Councilor Oliver said, and I talked briefly with Ms. Houston, and I really want her to fix it because

People will come back screaming at us because we're not doing what we're saying. So her data showing that, you know, they can build seven times more units, that's the multiplier, than what a A developer can do I thought had some issues with it. And they were using housing costs from pre-COVID and cost for development pre-COVID versus now. is not the same. So I mean, for those units, there should have been a multiplier factor on it. And then she included the the homeless shelter and those are just rooms they're not apartments but she referred that data was used as apartments and that's not apples to apples and

I agree there is a multiplier there but it isn't seven with what she used there and second if we use that then when the housing trust gets you know a million dollars and we're saying it costs six hundred fifty thousand dollars to build one and you know you can do seven times more so we expect that every time they got a million dollars we should see ten or eleven um affordable units and I don't think it's going to quite go like that and so and then the residents and and um you know people from Newton are going to be on us is like why isn't it because that's what you said so that that document definitely needs to um to be updated. But still, you know, I would rather not do this, you know, keep it to seven and nine. And if it's an issue, then, you know, we can change it. And look, we have a 71 unit

ownership property, which they're going and asking for a special permit to give payment in lieu of. you know seven to nine and they want to do a payment in lieu of they can first of all it's probably a special permit unless this is in vcod and you know that's something they can ask for so I'd rather just keep it there for now and you know we revisit it in a year or two and see if it did make a difference. Thank you.

I'm going to go to Councilor Oliver and the Planning Director and then again I'll take go last. Councilor Oliver.

Great, thank you, sir. So I'm just going to kind of, in my typical fashion, I am going to point out that several counselors helped me just make my point as well as Ms. Kreitzer. So what you're saying is there's a chance that these folks do get equity when they sell the unit or when they give up the unit. I recognize it's not the full boat, if you will, of the increase in equity, but it's equity. And I think it's important that we're doing whatever we can, and that's something we can do. So again, Still all four, Councilor Wright's version of this. But thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Heath.

Yeah, good debate tonight. Setting aside the debate about whether homeownership is better than rental, I think that's a total other debate this evening. I think the issue is that The dollars that would come from an in-lieu payment would, and there could be some debate about how many units and what kind of units could be created. There'd be more units and deeper affordability. So we'd be serving a lower income population than a prospective homeowner. You could debate about the merits of that, but I think The numbers that Anne put together. I agree. There are probably some things in there you could look at and quibble over. But the fact is there'll be more units. They'll serve deeper affordability. They might even serve homeless families at some point.

as well as we saw with the navigation center, the West Newton Navigation Center. But I think it really comes down to that issue. More units, deeper affordability versus home ownership.

Thank you. Kalis, before I recognize you, I want to just say that Mr. Heath, I'm grateful to you for coming tonight virtually, but we're grateful to you all along. I'm not sure we have many items to which you can speak at the next meeting, and I want to just indicate that I've appreciated you and your colleagues. I don't always agree with you, but you've come to us from time and time again to try and explain the perspective that you have. And I think you explained it well. And I just want to say that I, one, as chair, am grateful to you. Just wanted to indicate that in case I hope that you will come at our last meeting whenever we do it in person that I can say something then but just in case there's a mishap I wanted to acknowledge it tonight.

I understand there's going to be food at the last meeting, so that's awesome.

I hope so. This is a conversation the vice chair and I have to have. Neither of us, well, I can't speak for myself, but I'm not much of a cook, but we'll figure something out. Anyway. but thank you. Councilor, Vice President Kalis.

Chair Baker, it's terrific that you just made those comments. I think those are totally appropriate. And yeah, we'll miss you, Mr. Heath. I just wanted to, I think this was great discussion, but I wanted to say that we review this every three years, is it? So three to five. So none of this is permanent. And I think that Again, I hear all the arguments against, but I think it's worth trying and seeing what happens because we've never done it. So that's all I have.

Anybody else? I recognize everybody that wants to speak. So I'm just going to indicate that I actually am going to support this item. I think Mr. Heath encapsulated it properly. We have a choice of more units or a particular quality. and this is one of those trade-offs that I think is worth trying to see if we can get a little more of the home ownership in the mix and therefore I think it's worth the experiment of making a distinction. So I will support the amendment. Councilor Oliver and Councilor Albright, I'm sorry. I didn't see who was up first. They were quick.

Councilor Albright was up first.

Yeah, I'll just be quick. I just want to say to Councilor Kalis, this is not something new. This is something we've been doing since the beginning of Inclusionary Zoning to require them to do a unit. So what's new is to ask them to do in lieu. instead. So you're not asking for something new. You're asking for the same thing all over again.

That's not rental.

It's on the rental. It's different on the homeownership. It's exactly the same.

We're keeping the current structure. You're correct. Thank you, Councilor Albright. Oliver.

Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. I didn't anticipate jumping in again, but I do think that Councilor Block made a fantastic point that we should not lose sight of. I think that to me is The point of where the units are sited and how they're kind of integrated, so to speak, across the city, I think is is an important aspect to consider here. And I also think that if we are already at a, you know, I have no idea what the ratio is, but we know we're getting a much higher degree or number of Rental units already. This might actually accelerate that kind of, well, I hope it doesn't, but it could accelerate more in lieu of payments for apartments.

I think we're going to be able to I think what we might get here is exactly what Mr. Heath is talking about. We are going to see an increase of funds going into the Affordable Trust and into Newton Housing Authority. And that's a good thing. So I am going to be very curious to see how this shapes up and see if Anything does or what does improve? Because I think we're going to see some improvements, obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn't be voting for it. But thank you again. I'm going to stop talking to this item. I think I've made my position pretty clear.

Thank you. So, Councilor Wright, I'm assuming you're moving your amendment now. had already taken this item and voted it out as indicated without the division between Reynolds. And so the motion really has to be to amend the committee vote of the last time. in order to add this as a different model. So I just want to be clear procedurally where we are as I understand it. Anybody disagree, please say so. So, Councilor Wright, you want to move an amendment to the prior report? You're muted, I think.

Yep, I want to move from the prior report and make the change of not changing ownership and leaving it at seven to nine units.

Okay, but we would adopt the... Other recommendation, which would make the rental units up to 19.

Yes. Well, in fact, all of the edits would be in place with the exception.

All of the other edits would be in place. We're not modifying any of that. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. OK, let's just see where we are. I'd like those in favor of the proposed amendment would raise your hand so that we can get a clear count. And I don't know if I can raise my hand. It'll be an interesting question. All right. Right, so I count. Councilor Wright, Councilor Kalis, Councilor Oliver, Councilor Baker, that's four. All those opposed, take your hands down, please, those of you. Okay, opposed, Councilor Albright, Councilor Danberg, Let's see, we're missing Councilor... Councilor Kinsman.

Kinsman.

I think Councilor Kinsman. Councilor Kinsman. Councilor Kinsman and Councilor Getz. Gatz. All right, Councilor Krintzman, do you wish to be voting?

I think he has an item at finance.

Oh, okay. So I have to count him as absent at the moment. Okay. So the amendment carries. And so that's what I will report to the council. And of course, the council can take up and decide this differently. But it may be, let me ask Mr. Heath and Ms. Kreitzer. We've done a lot of work on the inclusionary zoning, and this is still going to require 16 affirmative votes. And I would like to make sure that we get the whole thing passed. and I may have to investigate with the law department whether we have to We can or could divide the item if we had to so that we could make sure that we get over the other things passed. I would not like this to be the issue that would prevent us from doing all of the work that we've done.

Councilor Baker, I just want to say I'm not going to hold up the whole item on this one thing, so I'm still going to vote for the whole thing in the council.

Oh, okay. All right. Councilor Danberg?

Yes, I wanted to say I'm not going to hold it up, but if we could divide the item, that would at least make it clear to everyone that the Home ownership issue and the 7 to 19 on the rentals would be separate, could be separate votes.

I think the tricky problem is that if we hold that item, it effectively leaves the current arrangements in place. In other words, the seven to nine would be applied for both rental and in other words, that would be the one change that would not be made at all. if we voted the rest of it. Mr. Heath, you want to come in?

I was just going to say I really appreciate the committee's hard work on this, the many months that we've covered this, and I would defer to my Colleague, Ms. Kreitzer, who put in the most work on that. But I wouldn't want to hold up the whole ordinance on this particular issue. I like the idea that many counselors have put forth, which is let's keep an eye on this and see what the

All right, so if that's the case, we may end up having this. It'll be a second call item because it's an item that's been recommitted Well, actually, I don't know if it has to be a second call item. If it's coming out of committee, it could be the committee report just as amended. So it may be that that's the first call item. And if nobody puts it on second call, we can pass it. All right. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Heath. Any comments, further comments? Councilor Krintzman, you were absent for the vote on the amendment, but I would entertain, just because of the importance of your participation, if you would like, A motion to reconsider the item just so that we could vote again if you would like to be included. I appreciate that, Mr. Chair, but I didn't hear the discussion, so I don't think it's right to vote. Okay. All right. Thank you.

So then I think we are, I would accept a motion to approve the item as amended.

So move.

Okay. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

What are we voting on? Just the amendment or the whole thing?

Yeah, the whole thing because we amended part of it, but we have to report the whole thing out.

I wasn't clear on that.

I'm sorry, let me be clear. We're just putting the whole package back before the council. So all those in favor, say aye. Again, do it one more time. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Abstentions. Okay, one abstention. Councilor Kressman, thank you. Okay, I think that concludes our business unless anyone has any. And if Councilor Albright and you stay on for just a minute, I have a process question for you for the next meeting.

Sure.

Okay. And also, the rest of you, thank you very much. Appreciate you coming out. And Ms. Holden, can you stand on and Mr. Oliver, our Vice Chair, stay on for just a minute? This will be, you can turn off the recording for this purpose, Ms. Holden. I just want to...

Okay.

Thank you all.

Have a nice Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.

Thanks for watching!

Thank you.