Zoning & Planning Committee - October 26, 2026

Your background is certainly well suited to helping us out, there's no question about that. And I should also pause to say thank you for your willingness to serve. There's a lot of ways, I think, to contribute to the city. This is certainly an important way I am curious, it seems like your interest in CPC tends to be more from the open space rec side of the house. And I'm curious if you've considered Parks and Rec, or maybe even how familiar are you with the totality of the work that goes through CPC?

Well, I mean, I have read up on it. So, I think the overall scope was of interest to me. I do have a particular affinity for some things that you mentioned but I think historic preservation and other things like that are all part of it that I think are super important. So the interest is broad, but I certainly have A higher interest in the things that you mentioned. So it's just I think that, you know, helping the city out in a way and I've also I served on the for three years. So I understand about making decisions with groups of people and, you know, trying to have the best interests of the city or whatever that particular focus. And in that case, it was the arts. So and I think I'm pretty good at talking to a variety of people listening to people and seeing what's the best for the city.

Fantastic. And are you fairly familiar then with like, do you attend CPC meetings or are you? I have not up until this point.

Okay.

Yeah. Fantastic.

That's all the best. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll echo John's words for stepping up and it was so nice to meet you. And just wondering, in this role, you evaluate a lot of projects obviously over A number of different areas. And one of my first votes, I think as when I became a new councilor was on the CPC project and There wasn't a lot of detail that was presented. The financials weren't really great, and I'm just wondering what criteria do you think that you will need to see before you move a project forward? What would you like to see somebody who's coming to you asking for city money, that obviously we all contribute to. What do you think is important that they bring to the table for you?

Yeah, great question. I mean, The details that are required for proposal need to be included. And if they're not, that's problematic on a number of levels. So I think that... Part of it is that I will want to learn from my co-commission people and see what they've experienced, what they expect, what It's sort of written like these are the 10 criteria that we sort of need as a general rule and they come in with three. I think, you know, without even having to consult, I think this can be problematic because I think you want to be conscientious about spending the money of the city, which is us, which all of us. So I think if that's... And I have also in my other world like I've written grants so I know what that's like to fill in all those spaces, address all those issues.

And so I appreciate it from that perspective and I would think that people need to be held to a standard that's not ridiculous but that also means that they've given time The time needed to prepare an application

So having said that, which is a great answer and if you've done grants then you obviously have a lot of experience. I deal a lot with grants. Do you have any ideas about what you think should contributed from the organizations that are coming forward in terms of you're asking for this much, but I thought about what they should also be bringing to the table in terms contributing to the project. And I'm thinking right now about a historical Renovation, just it could be any project.

Right I mean I think it's a little premature for me to comment because I haven't seen even like two or three to compare you know so I don't I don't know if it's apples and oranges, if it is something. But I think that I would have a sense of that as time goes on in terms of what What might be useful? And also, you know, maybe we're asking the wrong kinds of questions. I don't know. But that's something that, you would be evaluated. So I wish I could answer that, but I think I'd have to see some things more concretely to be able to know whether that's, you know, things should be different or what's included.

As long as you're going to ask questions then as far as I'm concerned you've answered the question.

I'm a big question asker yes thank you yes any other questions?

So in the mayor's letter, he mentioned the outdoor recreation. Are you filling a slot or an opening on the commission and the committee for outdoor recreation?

I think, I mean it's on the newsletter that seemed to be like a little bit of the angle so that seems to be what it is but I'm happy to be coming from different A few points on it, but that's what I think it said.

So have you... I know you've lived here for a while, so have you familiarized yourself with the parks? Oh yeah.

I have a daughter, I think we've danced in every park in Newton. And when all the music stuff came and I have dog, I see John like at least once a week crossing paths so Yeah, I mean, I'm everywhere on both sides of town and walking around taking advantage of as much as possible.

Great. And thank you for being willing to serve.

Yeah, sure.

Any other questions? Councilor Furman? Thank you. I'm not a member of the committee, but I'm on the council. Again, thank you for stepping forward. I am interested in this notion as Councilor Gordon brought forth about your being familiar with writing grants and that sort of thing. We've had some instances where the CPC has been approached and said it's important for the city to make its commitment before any organization could go out and then raise money. I've done some fundraising, and I frankly think that's a little bit backward if they can't produce some documentation that they've raised the money. Do you have a sense about where city money ought to be in this process?

Yeah, I mean, that's also a really good question. I've also done a lot of fundraising So I know both sides of it. And I think again, and I'm not trying to be political in my response, but I think it does depend on What the organization is. I mean, ideally they do come forward with some funding already in advance as opposed to relying on the city but depending on what kind of application it is maybe it does make sense that the city funded first I couldn't say again without looking at it, but I think it's a little bit of a quandary because you want to be sort of sure that you're giving money to a cause that's going to be able to fulfill its ask. and so if this is just a piece of the request then there's going to be more to it down the road. And so, of course you want you know, fund successful projects.

So I think it does depend and I think also I imagine there are people that are sort of repeat customers If you know that they've sort of followed through, done well then that's something that you can go on as a historical thing. Not that the projects are the same but it does give them a little bit of a step up in that regard So I hope I answered it.

We may have some slight differences of opinion here, but thank you and best wishes to you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Notice that you indicated your occupation as home organizer after all of the things you've done. Yeah, I assume it There will be at least modest organizational opportunities on this. Anyway, for the councilor from the ward, Councilor Oliver. Thank you very much for being willing to serve. What our process involves I voted committee, which then goes to the full council. You're welcome to stick around and listen to the rest of our conversation or you can go home but that vote is generally almost entirely in my experience ratified without debate. So I don't think you're at any peril.

Okay, great. Thank you. That's a good note.

I can see you already. Anyway, thank you so much everybody.

Take care.

Thank you. Our next appointment is 32826, Appointment of Robert Silber to the Homily of the Historic District Commission as an alternate on November 5, 2017.

I've lived in Newton for 40 years or so, and perhaps more than 20 years ago. and I sent him to Since that time I've been on other boards and so on, but currently I'm sort of stepping back for my architectural practice. and so that's why I suggested my candidacy for being on one of the commissions. Most of my architectural practice has dealt with historic buildings.

We've done a couple of projects in the city, the central fire station from historic renovations to the original fire station building, administration building Also, I've worked for the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and renovated their project, their building, their historic Building 18. 48 building. So I'm quite familiar with both the, you know, the process for working within the Historic District Commissions and I think

Thank you very much. Questions or comments from members of First Councilor Wright and Councilor Gett?

Thank you for stepping out, and it's great always to have an architecture This is our sister, and especially if you have historic preservation in your background. Just wondering how did you go from physics to architecture?

My father was an architect and my older brother was an architecture. And so when I was entering college, I thought the last thing I wanted to be is the third architect in the family. And it was only when I was finishing my degree in Filson that I began to conclude that becoming an architect because of my brother and father What I loved about physics was building things. and I never used them because what I really enjoyed was building them.

Great, thank you. Thank you, as Councilor Wright is saying thank you for stepping up and yet again. That's wonderful. Now in terms of your background as well as going back to the Ever Falls, how long ago was that? Because we've had quite a bit of work.

A long time ago. It was a long time

Yeah, suggesting that we've had quite a bit of demolition requests and I really appreciated watching the Ever Falls Historic District Commission because it's a sequential sort visiting a project and then improving it, and having the back-and-forth with the applicant. So I'm hopeful that you'll re-familiarize yourself whenever fall.

I'm not up for Upper Falls. I was on server and I wanted to do Upper Falls, and I say give me a new district Because I think that might be more interesting.

So we're over again.

Okay.

Not as familiar with it? Councilor Dahmubed could speak to it, but they too are actually pretty engaged. But what I really appreciate is the evolution of process with the commission members and you being an architect will really have the eye to sort of this, the improvement of the design along the way. Especially with historic preservation on it. That's pretty incredible.

Well we've been sort of on both sides of the table as in a practice We've renovated many national historic landmarks and we understand the process. I mean, We renovated Cock Hall, a McKimmy White building on Jefferson's lawn at UVA. I mean it's not only a National Historic Monument but Heritage site. So we understand what it's like to modify And so that means that new life gets poured into old bottles. Some new wine is poured into the old bottles and modifications

Thank you very much. So I have a theme that I've been asking for

to people who are going on to these historic district commissions. Sometimes it's been difficult, to find a quorum for these district commissions, because it's a lot of work and people are busy with their and so forth. And so the mayor's office had made a proposal to have one big district commission that serves all of them. and the biggest objection was to people on the district commissions who said, oh but then you won't know. You won't live in the district and you won' t be aware of what's going And I find it interesting that you live in Ward 5, I think, and you've been on the Upper Falls. Yes. Now you plan to be on the Auburndale? Yes. How important is it do you think for

I mean, clearly you don't think it's important because you served on districts that you don t live in. So how important is it to live in the district I think it could be a conflict as often.

A modest hundred-year old house, but I don't live in a historic district. And so I just try to be... In any of these questions, I try to the objective and follow the regulations and be thoughtful I'm still working, but only part-time. So I don't think there's a problem about whether or not I have the time to perform the tasks. I think this sort of The sort of issues are really the same in all of this art.

I appreciate that answer. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilor Dahmubed.

Thank you Mr. Silber for being willing to do this as I was really excited when I saw your name on here because I think I applied to Schwartz Silver when I was in undergrad into grad school. And so I'm going to ask you, I think i got a very polite rejection But I think, I've been asking people for the historic commission kind of similar to Councilor Bray. the same kind of question which is basically and I think your body of work, which is really impressive sort of answers it unto itself. But basically the question is Do you believe that new things should look like old things, or do they better serve the long arc of history by looking like their time?

Well, this is a challenge. The National Park Service guidelines say that However, I think more typically What you really want to do is, what you really wanna have are editions which are of So you don't get the kind of dissonance that you would get if you're actually doing something modern.

So despite this sort of advice from the Secretary of the Interior, you know I think I think fitting in is really more to the point. The issue becomes when you have large additions on historic, I think, to have some sort of distinction between the new and the old. But if you're talking about window replacement or modest changes or things of that sort It really ought to look like it didn't happen insofar as that's possible.

Great, thank you and thank you for being willing to serve Albert Dale.

and I want to just echo that. Mr. Silber's firm is nationally renowned, We really appreciate the fact that you're willing to devote some more of your time for the public interest.

Well, I enjoy it.

All right. I think it's customary for the ward councillor not forget

All right, all of them.

Any more discussion?

All those in favor say aye. Opposed? Abstention? I said it. Wonderful. You heard my speech about the process, so I think you're not in any peril.

Okay. Very nice to meet you. Thank you. Good to see you all.

I got a lot of polite rejections back then. I really didn't know what I was doing yet.

It's true, we've made it a point that you feel that everybody

It's pretty good. You don't get that with your email every day, much less a job ad.

So we've got a number of items. I'm just going to read the docket items, and then want to introduce some people that I haven't had a chance to introduce before. We're going to talk about demolition as delay but there are a number of string of docket items that I won't read the whole text. 29026, 29126, 29226, 30726 and 30826 which relate to What we do regarding the historic district ordinance in response to demolitions. Let me just say a word about our process before I get to the introductions. This is a conversation we began at our last meeting where we were looking at actually two meetings ago when we looked at our ordinance to familiarize ourselves with it. Then the last meeting, we had some insights from other communities. This meeting I hope to have Thank you all very much.

a set of provisions that we could work toward getting those into a draft form that we can then have public comment on at the next meeting because I think it's important that the public have an opportunity to weigh in on this. and then have a working session at the conclusion of that in order to see if we can get a draft that's ready to go to the council. My desire, and it may not be feasible is to avoid getting This item held to the end of the December meeting. I think that because we have some people who might be away and I'd like to make sure that the full council has an opportunity to be heard on this rather than have it. Now, the other context piece I want to mention is that As we've heard in prior conversations, there is a zoning aspect to historic preservation on the other side in the sense of what gets built as opposed to what may be torn down and preserved.

That aspect I'm not relinquishing the committee's responsibility and opportunity for, but because of the nature of the state law being in some degree a flux as well as just the process of how we can manage our work. And it's my intention to try and begin that process after we've completed this one, although we may take some early steps to try understand what our options are and it may be that that will be coming up to the committee after the first of the year. So I don't want to have anyone who's been interested in this field that we're ignoring the zoning aspect because it's been important and has been raised a number of times but it's just as a matter of our process, I think it's important for us to carry forward. What I would hope to do is to have the members of the planning department who are here plus some perhaps the Chair of the Historical Commission, if he's willing to comment on different aspects that are before us.

to see what provisions we would like to move forward and then go forward from there. And in that light, I just want to acknowledge we've been joined by the Director of Planning, Ms. Herrick, and I'm very glad to have her and also I think that Councilor Farrell has joined us, but he didn't get formally recognized except for the question. And David Lewis is here from the historical planner. So I'd ask Yeah, and Ms. Wolf is also here for the planning department. So Councilor Kelley has joined us online. We're also joined I believe by the Associate City Solicitor Andrew Lee and is there any other member of the council who I don't recognize? Okay. And also, Mr. Wilson is acting as our clerk tonight. We've got the are able, assistance he can provide.

So I think what I would like to do is just make one other comment because again several people who may be new to this discussion The first item on the agenda was 429026, which was discussion of demolition of homes and their replacements. And I wanted that on the Agenda just because the context for this is that we are losing Houses in Newton on the average of about two or three a week spread over time for all the reasons we've discussed before, and they're being replaced by much more expensive than in most cases larger structures. So the context for this conversation is, will the historical ordinance give us an opportunity to help preserve those? I think it's important at the outset to say that because this is a historical ordinance

There may be, and I know a number of people have expressed this including myself, a byproduct of this is some of the more affordable older homes in the city will also be preserved Several of us have talked about in the past, but I think that we have to still stay within the framework of the historical ordinance if you do that. So I just wanted to indicate that at the outset. Now, with that I would like to invite the planning representatives who are going to help us understand this to come to the tables where they can be seen or at least heard and go from there. Mr. Cornelius do you like to join us up there?

Thank you very much.

So I'm going to introduce again, so the public can know who you are. And Liz Wolf is in the long range, one of the assistant senior long-range planners. I'm not sure I've got your title exactly right. Just clarifying it.

Mouthful, Senior Planner Long Range Planning.

And Mr. Lewis is a Chief Historical Planner and Mr. Cornelius is chair of the historical commission who's not a city staffer, he's a willing volunteer. So what I would ask is the department to sort of take us through the ordinance and the way the framework has been set up is to try, as I understand it, and you've seen this in the packet, I hope, to sort The ordinance of the modifications that may be possible in the order in which the Commission acts or the staff work with the Convention Act so that we can sort of follow the process through. And is that an act to abstain from this hearing? Okay. So I will, who's going to vote for you? Okay.

I'm gonna kick it off and then balance it to the experts. So you've already introduced kind of this conversation, so I don't think we need to reiterate it. But tonight, we're trying to get a sense of where the committee would like to go with this so that then if desired, we could move into the next phase. So we're going to go in order of how the process works. For example, we're gonna start with historical significance because that's the first thing that's determined in the process And then at the end, once we go through so we're going to go through historical significance. The hearing notification process, the length of delay and with that demo by neglect Waiver, both consideration of a waiver and also if you do want to maintain waiver what criteria can we look at? a listing requirement, the salvage program.

And then lastly housekeeping there are some process things that law and the historic preservation team have been wanting to make so this is an opportunity to do so. All right, so the general approach with this is that you have a funnel. We want to disincentivize applications for demo delaying first The ones that are still going to proceed with demolition, we want to try to incentivize partial over full demo. So that's kind of the strategy with all of these and Right now, the demo delay ordinance is bound by the purpose that's written out which is It's consistent with the comprehensive plan. The goal is preserving, rehabilitating and restoring whenever possible

and looking at things that have distinctive architectural features or historical associations that contribute to the historic fabric of the city.

All right.

Yeah, so this is something that we've talked about at the last couple meetings which is our definition of historical significance and how the process of something being deemed historically significant works So how it works is when we receive an application, our historic planners myself and our senior planner Kim Crocker will discuss applications with Doug, our commission chair. and things that are deemed to be historically significant go forward to a commission meeting on the agenda. Things that are determined to be not historically significant are approved administratively. The applications that are approved administratively is a very small percentage of the total applications we receive, as most properties do fit within the historically significant criteria we have so far.

um so currently it's if it's in a state or federal uh listed historic district um or has an historic association oh sorry his state or Federal Historic Registry either in the district or individually or has an historic association as defined by our ordinance. That's either if it's associated with historic people or events, or with the architectural cultural political or economic or social history of the city state or the country or if a property is historically or architecturally significant due to its period of construction, style of construction or the building method either by itself or in the context or group of buildings or structures. So that's something that we are able to sort of use the existing framework to look at a variety of different things. And Doug can speak to this as well, but we are you know the architectural style of a building how it fits in within the street that it's in itself how that street or neighborhood has evolved over time um how it

came to be built there, the history of the neighborhood or the individual village. But we have a series of proposals that are sort of in... Have to do with various things throughout this presentation that you'll see and maybe some sort have also added some potential effects and limitations for each of them. So one thing that sort of has come up with these past couple meetings we've heard counselors discuss is the idea of more directly sort of more clearly solidifying the inclusion of residential development history. So this is something that we, Doug and I, and Kim do consider that as part of the method of building construction or its association with a group of other buildings or structures. But a suggestion was made to add an explicit mention of development, which We added here an effect of that is it could allow the NHC to interpret more properties as significant. If you're specifically looking at development, it may look

things like planned subdivisions, sort of potentially some post-World War II housing, things of that nature. However, you know as we note here one of the potential limitations is it does not guarantee that the NHC may apply this discretion to any one specific property or property type even if it is added to the um even if it is added to the ordinance, even if something you know as part of a development or something. It still may not meet that level of historic significance and even if comes before meeting still may be found preferably preserved. Yeah I think this is part of it

Let me just recognize you. Oh, I'm sorry. But I just want to be clear the planning department is has indicated that this is a modification that you're prepared to support. Is that correct? Or does that work?

I can speak to that. Yeah, we We met with the legal department regarding actual generation of language. We as planners support this. The only limitation that the legal department placed on us is that we should really talk to ISD to ensure enforceability with anything you see tonight so we may not have specific like codified language where we see it going in as is in that second uh highlighted section or yeah you can The first one, I guess. Economic developmental or social history. But we were advised that until we get inspectional services guidance on enforceability to hold off on actually giving you complete language so we found that out at the seventh hour unfortunately as both of us are fairly new to the city but that's It's not a requirement.

The council is free to select whatever language they choose, but in terms of internal staff policy it's an established precedent

Well, I think it makes sense to have their comments included. But let's assume that anything we get through tonight will be run by them and then by the next meeting we're going to have some sense if there's any dissent from any of that.

So part of this, we're sort of implicitly doing this already. The language around the context of a group of building structures That's really what we often use in sort of the more mid-century pieces where there was a subdivision built and houses are all sort of similar or the same, that sort of context. To me, sort of the language is that's development history there. The individual houses themselves aren't particularly outstanding but wrapped together in that context and that developmental history

I think one of the conversations we had before is that you might end up with even if the context has changed significantly because we have The commission doesn't have to do anything if the standard

Well, the only piece I actually see is sort of very delineated within the ordinance itself in terms of speaking to that is contributing in terms of economic or social history to the city of Newton. So, that's I think defined well enough because then in your rules and rags Don't you then do a deeper dive in terms of more definitive, but you want to see that amped into the ordinance?

Yeah. I think some of our comments tonight is what can we make One of those is that we're taking that into context when we think about the various subdivisions. The newer ones, older ones, etc. It makes sense now.

I just, I really like this because even if you're already doing it we're thinking about future people and also you're talking about a body of people that are more than or any of the individuals here. And I've been reading some emails and things, and I'm not sure everybody really does this. So I like the idea of putting it out there that this is something that's important so I appreciate that language.

Can we go on to the next slide?

All right, so I'm going to speak to this one. So currently in the ordinance it requires that at least 14 days prior that a notice is posted with the city clerk and on the city website, and then mailings are sent to a Butters within 300 feet. But I think as we've discussed in previous meetings, sometimes people are feeling that they're not quite getting that notification either because they're outside that 300 feet or it's in their ward but they don't live in that neighborhood. and so one of the things that we've seen in another community, so Beverly currently has a requirement that they post a sign similar to how the city does currently with special permits and site plan review just because it actually notifies anyone driving by, hey I might be outside that 300 feet but There's a sign telling me otherwise.

The biggest thing is that increases awareness and then consequently, hopefully opportunity for public Participation in the hearing. It streamlines the notification process, so in some cases it might even allow the notice to be seen earlier because you're not waiting on that mailing. That sign is going up right away and this can work well in conjunction with other notification processes which I believe our director was going to speak too.

Okay, but we're talking about just for everybody's understanding this is the hearing that the commission would have on whether property which has been deemed historically significant should be preferably preserved, right? Just so that everybody understands what theory we're talking about. Ms. Shearer.

I do apologize. procedural conversation where I need to identify myself, which I totally agree with. I'm Catherine Peer director of planning and development. What was the question there?

Well, I think that you were going to speak too.

We talked about the signage. You were going

Yes, yes. So there is I know an existing process with especially like religious uses and similar that counselors are notified as soon as the application rolls in. I am in early stage conversations with new gov regarding making more counselors aware of more types of projects that came up with special permits as well. I haven't yet reached a level of technical ability to do so, but we are working towards that goal. Hopefully there will be more direct and immediate notification of all types of projects to award counselors shortly within the next, say four or five months. We just need to figure out how to do it on the back end.

I would just comment that in the zoning ordinance we have an existing provision for provides for early notice to the ward counselors. So, the question I think is do we need anything like that The anticipation of technological advances will avoid the need for that but provide it anyway.

I mean if an ordinance change is made and we're unable to secure a technological solution. It does add to staff capacity issues, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. Obviously if it's an ordinance, it's ordinance.

My own view is that I think it would be useful to have it in the ordinance, and then the technology can take care of it if we can do that. But that's my opinion. Councilor Oliver?

Anit. I'm noticing, at least on this slide that this line is not matching what was in our packet just you have three bullet points I have two Yes, and that in and of itself is what it is. But can you just point those out when you think about this? By the way, this is a little different here, here or here. Just

Okay, so can we go on next? Are there any other questions?

I'm sorry.

Thank you. You were actually sort of noticing the hearing so that then this is when the property comes in for any sort of demolition. I mean, this is the sequencing. But you specified the language and the hearing of when the property is going to be considered whether or not it's going to Correct. But I'm sort of suggesting that in an overview, what is the notice telling us? It's telling us that this property is potentially going to be demolished. I mean, it certainly comes in as either for full or partial. And so I'm just sort of curious What is the notice for? Is it simply just to say that this property is up for consideration?

That's what this is. I mean, it doesn't mean that there can't be someone again We generally notify the public of a hearing opportunity where they can be heard and something is being decided by body. But informal notice could be given either because of an ordinance change or because of just policy to notify counselors if an application is filed, if that's what you're asking.

No, that's a prequel kind of consideration that this property is coming in for demolition That's why I'm sort of saying that rather than, you know, sort of designating on the notification for whether a property is going to be correctly preserved, it's more about the properties in the sequence to be demolished. So I sort of feel as if this is one step in that process, but the real notification is that it's in queue. It's moving through a process to be demolished.

Well, it's a fair question about who's notified when? Right now, as I understand it. And again, I'm just trying to clarify the current ordinance provides for notice to the abutters and the modification currently being recommended is to add to that notification of abutters a sign that would say this property is going to be the subject of a conversation in a hearing. on such and such a day at the city. And that's what's being proposed now. Now there is other notification that the council could ask for or we can include, but I'm just trying to understand what you want.

When you notice, you get a notice that the property came in for demolition and this is the hearing about that fork in terms of that the property is going to go from historically significant to potentially being designated as a privately preserved property. So what I'm trying to do is sort of get the word out that this property potentially will be demolished. I think that's it.

Well, this doesn't if it gets past the initial screen. Just remember we're going through the process. The first process is, is this property historically significant? So we just talked about expanding the formal criteria to allow a broad reach of first order historical significance. It doesn't mean it has to be done, but it can be done. Once it comes through that gate, right? It then comes to a public hearing before the commission. If it doesn't get through that gate, in other words, it's deemed not historically significant, then administratively We talked about the sort of two key solutions, both a planner and a delegation, a delegee of the commission. In this case, the chair at this point has to both have to agree it's not historically significant I just want to understand. Can I just help?

What Councilor Getz is saying is, so if I see a sign that says there's going to be a public hearing about whether this house was practically preserved or not, I might say oh that's nice. They're going to think about whether it's preferably preserved or not, or historically significant or not. They won't understand that underlying that is the potential demolition of the house.

It's just a wording.

I think we have to get to saying that could say on the sign, An application has been made to demolish this house. The first step is whether it's preferably served. That hearing will be on such and such a date, Frank.

This is sort of like the goal here is that people are on notice and walk by. In fact, this property potentially would be demolished.

Okay. Well, I think the question is can that be handled administratively or is it in the way the sign is drawn? Or do we need ordinance language for that?

Um, so there's different ways you can go about that. You can do ordinance language specifying that so that you ensure if there's ever changes in Department Staffing, or even the commission itself that that's always a standard operating procedure. There's also some flexibility. The ordinance itself likely wouldn't dictate word for word what it says, so I think you have options there. You can codify it but you don't have to be specific down to every individual word. And we'll talk about that when we get the language. Yeah.

So I would suggest we put it in the importance because counselors come and go. and directors of planning coming together. It's just everything changes, this is kind of what we're thinking right now so I think we should codify it. I think the only downside to being very blunt

I think this is the moment that you want to be engaged with the community because i think that people many times come back to you after You know, they see the fence go up and they know what's going on. And they've had no opportunity to comment. And it's, you know, many people do circles. They walk and they walk around and they snow their neighborhood and then the fence goes up.

Okay, so I think I hear... Sorry.

Did you want to comment?

Just have a clarifying question. Is it possible to come up with language for like the just like I guess the first sentence or like a larger header that says this property has applied for demolition, yada yada with while leaving like you know you don't need to do like the whole form which right so You can say like including in bold letters, whatever the text may be.

Part of it could just mimic whatever is in the mailer. The common complaint is sort of that The piles and piles of junk mail we get these days and gets overlooked.

Thank you for your time. So let's make a suggestion that between now and next meeting you all think about some language that might just assure that the

Potential demolition is available as a public understanding, both as well as for the councilors. Let's move on with that. Oh, I'm sorry, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Is there any magic to 14 days?

Uh, I don't know. I think the legal requirement Andrew probably could speak to this better than anybody else. I Think the legal requirements is less than that but that's what's always been in our ordinance of Noticing for public hearings has been 14 days, but I don't know. Andrew Lee might have more information about that. Why it's 14? Are those business days or is

Can you see it Andrew? I'm right here.

I was waiting for the discussion in the room to finish. So, I think it's important to remember that the demolition delay ordinance is not prescribed by any particular statute so the process is created by the city through the ordinance itself. So, the law that David was referencing is open meeting law which for a meeting there needs to be 48 hour notice obviously 14 days is greater than that 14 days is in keeping with the notice requirements for other hearings. I believe for historic districts it's 14 days. I'm struggling to recall other ones that are around 14 days notice, but That's generally what's done. I've seen it as low as 10 days as well, but 14 seems to be the standard. That's why it was chosen. It was in a prior version of the demolition delay ordinance before it was amended in 2020 and obtained in 2020 as well.

Let me be clear, I'm not asking to shorten it at all. I'm asking whether it's long enough and I don't know what that means for staff and so on. even of others about what's going on. So I'm just asking the question,

The way the ordinance is written and the process works are submission deadlines for meetings is three weeks ahead of the meeting, so 21 days. So that 14 days gives us as staff a week to review the applications, make sure they're complete, meet with Doug, decide if the applications are going on the agenda and then send those hearing notes out. Sometimes they do go out more than 14 days in advance get it done early. That does happen, but 14 is the minimum and that's sort of because of that.

Yeah I mean if you were to extend this time frame you'd want to also extend sort of the time frame that you have to actually act on the application

I do understand. That's what I'm saying. What's the implication of that? Is there any opportunity to say when we're talking about who gets noticed whether with the clear understanding that you have made a decision about whether it's going to be preferably reserved or going for demolition, whether the notice could go to the ward councillors at an earlier date. We can do that. I'm just asking for the conversation and don't know what that means to staff time. If I hear about this and I know it's on Wednesday, and I You know, 14 days to try to do something about it.

Well, I think just to clarify process and again go where we've been a little bit before but I think it's worth revisiting. is that once an application for demolition comes in, it's then referred to and Mr. Cornelius as the chair representing the commission to make that initial evaluation. If they make that evaluation, I'm not sure what the period of time is before you need to make a response to them Some period you have to look at it. But the question is, if there is an application that process at least goes on then If it's deemed not historically significant, then a permit for demolition can issue. So the question I guess is whether you're asking there ought to be some

You would like some notice of that application being filed as opposed to the decision to put it on the commission agenda.

I personally, I don't know how the other councilors feel about that but when and it would be a lot of work in Ward 8 to be perfectly honest, but I would like to know as soon as possible when somebody applies. And I would love to go out and quickly look at it and say oh crap I really want to organize Thank you very much. and I understand what i'm talking about for staff time but i'm saying for protecting some of these homes in many instances well it'll all get to be and Confucian. I'm just asking if it's possible for a ward counselor or the counselors in the ward to be notified as soon as possible that they know that a property is

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You might have moved on from this but I did just want to confirm I double-checked Chapter 40C which is a statute that governs local historic district commissions, that a public hearing when someone is seeking a certificate of appropriateness to alter something in an historic district, that the public hearing notice is 14 days 14 days is also the time of notice for zoning amendment as well. Although that notice is by publication, but it is still by 14 days. So just reiterating that among statutes for notice for public hearings and similar contexts, 14 days seems to be the standard.

With all due respect, I think given our charge by the public

that public notice doesn't necessarily have to include the local representatives of that area and those people might be considered as End of my conversation.

Thank you. I think I had Councilor Kalis and Councilor Ober. Just to clarify, Mr. Lee, is that law or did you just say that's guidance?

It's law as it applies to a historic district, which that's not what we're talking about. However, there is a similarity and I know that Some of the review process was done to match the Historic District Commission review process. So it's not law as to the demolition delay, it is law for historic district commissions. Is that distinction clear?

That's clear. I just have to say that I fully agree with Councilor Farrell on this, and for me it's not just the councilors talking about someplace like Newton where people go away for 30 days or over two weeks or three weeks, especially in the summer. So I think that a longer period if we can put it into the ordinance makes a lot of sense.

Well, so there are a couple of issues I think that You may need to reflect on and see what the impact is. One is notifying the public, in the initial question was notifying through a sign at same time or anticipation of the mailing that piece I don't hear I think that's a good idea. And the question is making sure it says this property may be demolished, not just it may be preferably preserved. So that part I think we're clear on. The second part is whether in fact whatever notice is given is as adequate in terms of the potential opportunity for people to understand what's going on and respond to it. And the question is, I hear from Mr. Lee that is not bound by any statutory framework. It's a matter Right now it's 14 days, but we could make the period of time longer. But I think we need also to understand the impact on how the commission actual process works

All of this is, again, a process. But that's I think where we are right at the moment. Ms. Wolfe and then I want to recommend the last chair. Or should it be Councilor Albright? I beg your pardon. Let me go. All right, Ms. Wolf you can go ahead first and then come back to Councilor

So just a clarifying point right now that 14 days is for the hearing and what I might be hearing is some people talking about finding out when an application is in versus when a hearing is happening so if Deciding what the goal is would just be helpful for us in terms of next stages because that would change. Potentially, it might not just be changing the number of days you might be asking for something more about. that deliberation prior.

So when I mentioned in the last meeting about Gov being able to help with notification of counselors, I don't know how that's going. You said you're working on it? but it could be that when somebody applies, the application starts through its process with you guys and then also immediately just goes to the three ward counselors. It seems like as long as you're talking to the new gov folks, you know. I wouldn't think it would be that easy. Because it's not our software. It's somebody else's. So I know. But still, that's what I would try going towards. Yeah.

That's what I was saying too. It's like when ISD get the application for a demo, You know, then it would go out to the councilors. Does it go first to ISD or does it go to planning?

No, I think it goes to ISB.

I think the application...

I think if goes to isb.

Technically it sort of It's recommended that they submit the historic application first, but some people try to submit the application to ISD and then ISD sends them our way. But they can't get the ISD application like they can get a demo permit obviously until they've gone through historic so The first step is historic.

At clarifying point, the ISD application is the demo permit itself. The historic application is permission to its demo.

So I just want to respond as well. For me, when the application is made, Councilor should be alerted but then when the sign goes out either a male or it's gonna be placed somewhere. That's when the public should know and that's what I think the 30 day, whatever however many days beyond 14 should start. Okay. And Ms. Ferrer?

Planning Development Director Kevin Feerick, I have a question for you all to consider. Do you want this to apply uniformly to full and partial demolitions or is this for a full demolition only in terms of just changing the timeframes? And even with the posting, I mean there are two different types you know like somebody who's knocking off a back window and panel to build a mudroom is different from someone

If I can clarify, what does the commission give notice of now by 14 days by mail to a Butters? When you give notice by mail right now, the ordinance provides for that. What do you notify the abutters about?

So we notify them that a property that they are near is going to be on the NHC agenda and it has a list of every address that's going to The type of demolition for each property and a link to the Zoom, the Zoom link and a

I guess what my instinct is that whatever you're already doing for notice to the neighbors would be the same, whatever's within the scope of that you would do. for this purpose. In other words, you wouldn't make a decision that only put up a sign for full demolition if the notice to the neighbor says that's coming in for partial. In other words, if it's ending up on the commission agenda then that seems to me the noticeable event that you would have either by mail or by sign, or both. Right? Does that make sense? All right. Yes or no?

You know, we sit here and ask about 14 days. But if we I want to be careful about lengthening the process too much because people complain that it takes so long and they got to go over historic first and things What's the last time that you get an application? You can submit an application up to 21 days prior to the meeting and then the hearing date

or the posting deadline notification deadline is 14 days to give us time to process the applications, make the decisions. format the agenda, do all of that. And also like these are you know, Councilor Farrell asked this I believe it's 14 Days, it's not business days. So if having that seven days of buffer allows for, you know, if there is a holiday or, you A buffer for us to put the agenda together. And with the fact that we get so many applications and the agenda is so long, that week is very helpful for us To have the adequate time we need to put it together.

Two points I think the ordinance currently says make a decision within, I think, 45 days. So all these time frames that David mentioned are to make sure we can comply with that 45 day timeline.

Like the NHC has to make the preferably preserved or not decision within that time.

The second point is, do you want to be cautious of sort of staff time having to notify all the city councilors manually if we can't get it through We get two dozen a month and try to sort out the different awards and notifications for it.

The Traffic Council gives us all notice of things in our ward that come up. and I think they manage that administratively. I don't think it's a big deal to do that, but I think the point is not to overburden staff in this process. But I think you have guidance about early notice to the counselors of an application being filed, but a site-specific arrangement for the demolition hearing. excuse me, the Breckenridge Preserve area and at least reflect on whether the 14 days should be expanded. It has no, in other words it's prudential right now. It's not legally required and so the question is will it make administratively easier and more successful if you have more time than less? You don't have to

and so on. But we are also mindful that the Historical Commission has a big agenda, and so we're trying to make sure that you can manage that agenda successfully.

Okay. All right. Councilor Dahmubed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Two things. One is about the signs, I found that flow chart diagram that y'all shared in the last meeting to be really helpful. And I think in the interest of government transparency, something like that could actually be on the sign so that people can understand Oh, this is the process that this goes through. And here are my potential points of interaction. It also helps to give people that kind of six-to-12 month outlook The demolition may happen in six months, 12 months. There could be a waiver, all of these kinds of things. And then the other thing was just I don't know if it would make sense to consider that you'd only put signs out or demolition that is not, or that is visible from the street or that it's not considered de minimis or something you know so then it's

Everybody's coming to talk about one window in the porch being replaced in the back or something like that, you know, if they're not sort of seeing the details.

You know, I actually do think that those are very helpful, maybe even QR codes you know that leads right to the new go page so that then you can actually see all the application material but my criteria is mostly for the You know, the full demolition. Just out of like thinking about you know just because especially if in fact the property is getting approval administrative approval for you know, a partial demolition and it's not in the public visible from the public way. I think that criteria is a lot, you know that standard is a lower and I think would lessen You know, some people will participate to that of just even being curious about what's going on. But I think the full demos are the most impactful, you know, and I sort of see this as when you want the public engagement.

If I make a suggestion, it seems to me the simplest way forward is not trying to make a line drawing about which one gets assigned but just say here's a QR code to the application you know And people will sort themselves out, I think, fairly easily rather than ask them to make the call right up front.

We've already got a process in place Wright, and then Councilor Gordon.

So right now for special permits who puts out those signs?

I can speak to this a little bit so it's the I don't know if they provide it to the property owner to put out or if they put it out physically themselves, but they're the ones that supply the signs. We keep a stack in the office and we fill it out and then it's given to them. and actually I'll touch upon this towards the end depending on where we go with the conversation. Right now, rules and regulations that require that sign to the special permits, it's like thing review is actually in the city council rules and regulation. So I provided a link for you that will make sure you all have seen what that language looks like. that you could potentially draw from that. We already have a similar requirement, it's just not an ordinance. It's oddly enough in city council rights.

Thank you, Chair.

The only thing I was going to say Councilor Dahmubed, without designing what this sign is going to look like. We are revamping the entire city website so under historical that would be a great thing to put and you could have A URL or QR code that also points to the process if you don't want to put that whole process on a little sign.

I will make a plug that we revamped some flowcharts on the Historic Preservation webpage in the last six months or so and recommend everyone check them out because they're really great. We could put links to those for people to see. And that flowchart is there. Exactly, that flow chart would be there and we can link right to it.

Okay, so are we done enough on notice you think for the point to move on? Okay, all right. You got enough? Do you understand where we're going you think?

I think so. We might have to still present some options just to get into the specifics of the next one, but I think it's enough to be able to go to the next stage.

Well let me summarize where I think we are. So we're talking about some sort of on-site notice in addition to mail notice. We're talking abut some preliminary notice to city councilors that an application has been filed at all and we're also saying if there's an advantage to the process to have it more than 14 days, what should that number be? If any so that you can give us some advice. Is that first summary for full demos? No, just for any of them. They can come back and say more or less. Okay.

So you would like us to come up with the number?

Let's put it this way. There has been some sentiment in the base from one counselor that there may be an advantage to the process of doing this review if there's more time for notice. And the question is, If you're doing that, it will back up when the application has to get into your system. But I think we are working with two finite resources. One is a staffed and the other is the members of the commission and their ability to sit and listen to a whole bunch of applications. So the question is, which will help? Assuming the public is informed in both cases The public may have more time as indicated to be informed and do things that are doing something means, but at least we'd like to understand what the administrative consequence of making an early

as opposed to 14 because it's within our discretion to do that, assume you would back up at least a week when the application would need to be filed. But I don't think we're in a position as a committee to respond on what is the right number, except to just ask you to reflect on it and then think about that for next time. That's not the key issue with this matter right now. We're talking about the degree of notice, but the time is a legitimate issue. Okay? Is that fair?

Yep. Oh, that's extremely helpful.

Okay. So let's go on to the next question.

All right, moving on to sort of the next topic that we've been discussing a lot here which is the length of our demolition delay. So as we've discussed here in Newton, our demolishing delay period is 12 months for most properties and 18 months for properties that are listed on the National Register. Elsewhere in Massachusetts delays do range up to 24 months, just two communities I believe at 24 a handful of 18 and one at 21 So some potential effects of extending the delay period could be that it further incentivizes the preservation of existing buildings by increasing potential timelines for new construction as well as carrying costs. Allowing for additional time to consider alternatives to demolition and it could deter buyers that do intend to demolish the property from purchasing a building in the first place. and also it would ideally increase awareness and protection of historic resources within the city. But then potential limitations could be

That, you know, as we've seen with the reasons that demos happen in the first place market pressures could still make demolition feasible due to the high potential value and constructing a new home. and it's possible that the increased costs, increased carrying in construction costs that we mentioned earlier could be passed on to those who end up buying the new construction house. So as well

Just one thing I'll add. Obviously, we've already discussed that like we can't pinpoint exactly what that threshold is for when it becomes infeasible but the other factor to consider is What may work in today's market might not work in next year's market, so it's also not something that you can pin down definitively that this is forever what we wish to do and change at the moment.

We can revisit that, but I think that's where we should at least begin. But I want to open it up for other options.

Sure. One other thing I'd add in terms of the increased cost pass to the buyers, it may also be a reduction in price paid to the sellers where the house at the end of the day is only going to sell for X I'm going to pay $100,000, $200,000 less for your house now than you did. And that just the other thing go along thinking about the timelines is to whether you have different delay periods based on the age of the building. The National Register is sort of an interesting piece to it, but it may make sense that it's 12 months for something after 1945 and 24 months or something prior to 1945.

Okay, Councilor Wright.

So if the developer needs to offer a couple hundred thousand dollars less, has a better option for our family to get the house? Which I think is a good thing.

Let me just comment that at least my own view is that it's valuable to have a are getting smaller, newer homes. But that's my view. Let's hear from other people. Albright, and then Councilor Dunn.

So instead of thinking of it as paying the current owner less, it could just increase the price of the house at the other end. Get the carrying costs either get taken off Seller or the buyer. I mean, we don't know which way it's going to go and The guy, the chair of the committee in Milton seemed to feel that What's going on there is that people just get the time clock running. They just get it started running. and I don't know if they're paying less or they'll charge more at the other end, but it's not stopping the demolition of these houses. It's just changing the timeline.

Okay. Thank you, Chair. I actually appreciate what you're suggesting in terms of like when the property gets its properly preserved status. I'd like the idea of, you know, the criteria that's in place I sort of see it as being additive. So if you meet one of the criteria, you hit a certain threshold or a certain delay time period. If four of them, you get the max. You know, just added like it's because we're in the historic commission sort of purview. We need to think about, you know, the asset is in terms of a historical asset so it's not necessarily a timeline. It's more the value of that property to the historic fabric of the city. So I like that association better and I do like the distinction between individually listed or national registered property versus a designated

you know, it hadn't in terms of many of the properties they go through the significance and the property reserved within the commission itself but many of them have already reached that high status and I sort of think of those as you know the most significant in terms of what they contribute so i sort of feel as if this is a place where we really need to sort of pay attention to what the ordinance is telling us

I have Councilor Kalis and Councilor Morton.

The two things that I'd like to hear from Mr. Cornelius, one is what Councilor Getz was just talking about that she really liked the idea of potentially layering in or just kind of get developers to change their behavior to be able to hit whatever the delays are. That's number one. Number two, when you mentioned it would increase the carrying costs or reduce the sale price to the developer Would it also reduce the sale price if people are selling to other people? I don't think so. No, that's more of my concern. That's why I just wanted to clarify and make sure that wouldn't.

Okay.

I'm sorry, do you want to respond?

I think there was a question. So Responding to that. Now, the pricing is a question, right? Does buying a first-liter light end up sort of I'm sorry, first of all about the different factors.

developers just hone in on the specific period, demolish those houses and go to the next period. Depending on how advantageous we make it for that delay.

Sure, certainly you've seen on all of the land use and planning stuff that developers One thing we'll point out with the National Register piece, which is great. The one concern is there's a tremendous amount of that done in the 80s and Amber. Some of the oldest stuff in the city is captured with that, but that's not really much of an ongoing process anymore.

I think I'm Councilor Gordon.

I'm sorry.

I've written fables about anybody. Let me go to Councillor Gordon and then I'll go to Councilor Farrell. Thank you, Chair.

So I actually don't like the idea of valuing other people's homes on that sort of system I feel in this city, many of us don't like say ranch type houses or there's a value placed on those. But for some people They're incredibly invaluable and they do have a lot of meaning. And there are a lot people who are leaving Newton because they can't get these houses, because people are buying them, tearing them down. So when you start valuing what You know, what you think of as maybe subjective I see more subjective. And so I kind of like the idea that two years and we leave it to the historic commission to then decide instead of saying oh your house is too recent So, you know, it was built in 1945. It represents this. We don't want those houses. That's how that makes me feel.

All right, I want to go to Councilor Farrell and then Councilor Oliver. And then Councilors Dahmubed.

which was really a wonderful area, which is now being you know

dismantled house by house. I'm not saying that would have been preserved there, but now you get into a muddle when you start looking at what is the criteria? What does that whole area represent now? It doesn't represent what it did. It doesn' t represent the future So, you know, there are houses there that I think probably are still worth preserving.

So let me see if I can do this right now. So I'll be corrected. Let me go to Councilor Farrell, then Councilor Oliver. Then we'll go from there.

Thank you Chair. I'm going to throw a different notion into all of this. Most of you know I've been pretty passionate about trying to save, like many of you, trying to say existing homes on the notion that They would be more accessible to people, modest beings who could put in a little bit of money and end up with a really nice home for a while. I don't see how what we're talking about saves the protection of the seller to get a market price for their house while at the same time Achieving what I would like to do and what I think many of us would like is make more affordable housing available.

And I just don't know about the notion of saying, incentivizing some developers to say if you take down that ranch 24 months if you won't agree to something like, if you build a two-family house that looks like the neighborhood It fits in better. And this is just, I wish I was smart enough to say that this is my idea. Spoken to a lot of people lately I find the idea really interesting. But you say something, okay, you can't convert that one house into a developer if you buy this, pay the market price and create two family houses and still be able to recoup your not only expenses, but major profit and end up with two houses that are selling for a couple of million instead of one that's selling to four men.

I would like to hear a conversation about that and whether that would in fact help us create the housing we want to create in a realistic way that protects the seller and incentivizes the developer to do something other than a 4,000 square foot house for $4 million.

We've had that conversation before. I apologize, though. and that involves a zoning change. That doesn't involve, and we're going to defer the zoning process for the time being but I really want to focus on what we're doing with this story

I would just say that I don't, I'm not convinced yet to put in the 24 month delay on. doesn't leave us with a problem about what can the seller get, and I think it's critical that the sellers can get market rate. That's my notion. Thank you.

I might go on for a few hours here. And I'm not going to stop there, folks. Just kidding. But in terms of it and I do appreciate the comment as well about where What are developers going to do? Are they going to lower their offer price and pass it along to a potential future buyer? At the end of the day, none of us knows. We're not built in. And I do think that regardless of any of those factors, if we don't try something We're gonna continue to see 120 plus. So we're going to continue to lose these homes, and by the way that rate is increasing. All of the data that Pam has looked at, sorry Councilor Wright has looked is proving them.

And I will remind us, where's that additional perhaps pile of dollars going to go? At some point the developer, a developer can't There's this thing called market rate that isn't going to let them do that. And to a degree, that means one less house is being torn down at least theoretically. That's the point of this particular lever that we want to vote on. I personally think that would be a little win. for the city of Newton, and one more home buyer who perhaps is already in Newton, who's finally gotten to the point where They can make the jump from either being a renter or into it, into a homeowner.

Or perhaps it's like learn your home or a home that they can kind of make modest modifications to. I know for a fact that's how I got into the house I'm in was incrementally just kind of a little bit bigger, a little more opportunity to do these things. All of those things I would consider to be a win Farrell's last point, this is just one of the levers we're looking at. No one I don't think is or should expect that this lever is the end all be all because I don't, I certainly don't. This is one of the things I think we should consider trying and if we're saving A handful of homes this way, I think that's beneficial to the city.

Um, I don't think it's going to necessarily impact or I don' see yet the pathway to an impacting The market rate a seller could get for the home. I don't see the logic that gets me there yet. Is it possible a developer might offer less? Sure, hopefully they'll have to offer enough under market value where their offer won't be taken up. Also, a little bit of a win for us because that means someone else, a homeowner, someone else will live in the home with a market rate offer will get the home I consider that to be a win. I think I'm following through the different conversations here, I think i've managed to kind of say that in under two minutes and with that said I'll yield the floor

I'm going to get to Councilor Dahmubed, and then I'll come back to Councilors Getz. And then I think we need to resolve this one. Councilor Albrecht. Thank you very much.

I, well one, I totally support any of these efforts to preserve buildings. In fact homes are not actually supporting the idea that we preserve them whether people are living in them or commercial, these are important value adds to our character. At the same time I also support I agree with Councilor Farrell's points that right now, I'm not convinced that this tool and even in combination with other tools is going to help us preserve the buildings, nor help them become less expensive or perhaps more affordable homes. And I had said this at the last meeting I didn't feel comfortable voting on something, the costs of which we don't understand.

And it says increased costs may be passed to buyers I don't feel like we understand the cost of this to buyers, to sellers, to developers, to the city in terms of real estate tax revenue. I just don't think that we have a full picture on this and I wish that we did because I would feel more comfortable with it. That being said, I think maybe the considerations for national register properties is an interesting place to look at.

So I'm circling back to your comments.

But I also feel as if there's a certain amount of weightedness that needs to be appreciated in terms of each parcel, each property is coming individually to the commission, you know, in terms where the property has already been considered historically significant, so the question before them is whether or not it's preferably preserved. So I feel as if what needs to be appreciated in the commission itself is not just the age But there's a whole criteria and I don't want to delineate it, but there's high specificity about what makes that property individually eligible for preservation. So I sort of see this as that needs to be appreciated in order to understand this whole continuum of like how much it contributes its significance in terms of the architect, you know, the building itself as well as it's uniqueness.

There is a whole profile that you have to sort of weigh and you have to say yay or nay each of these criterias. So something that matches all four of the criteria is much more weighted than the one that only meets one of your criteria, so that's where I associate the value The historic value of the property to the length of the delay. Because I think that this is a time that you want to give all those that are involved an opportunity to reconsider the full demolition. We want to go down the path of mitigation. I think we need to put in sort of, you know, Farrell behind me is suggesting, you know, in terms of other options, you have to think about how you're going to incentivize preservation over demolition. and that's another door, a lever that we haven't really talked about.

But I think that needs to be part of this conversation. The first piece that I think you need to do is associate the value, historic value of the property to the length of the delay. Okay? So if you get all four of them, you get up to the two years. If you only hit one of them you get a year So it's a continuum of length of delay. That's my optimal, but I don't know that we're there yet in terms of the work?

I don t think we re there yet. Okay. I hear what you're saying. Hang on a minute.

I think I'm somewhere along there.

I think you are. Do you mind if I recognize you?

Yeah, I'm not there. Most houses are not sold to developers. They're sold to a family who live in them and they are being preserved, and that's what we want to do. So here is a little lever that a developer is going to have to consider the costs, the extra caring cost that he has. And is it worth it? Is he going to make that money? to recoup it, is this project worth it? So I think this level lever here will help preserve more houses. We'll have less tear ducts. Is it going to solve tear duct? No, but this is just one of many I hear A lot of people sell directly to developers because everyone gave them the postcards in your mail. You know, firehouse site unseen and stuff.

And I've talked to a couple realtors Those people who sell off market, they don't get top dollar. And it's just easier for them, but even though they might say they're getting top dollar, they're not getting top dollars at all. Some don't want to deal with the realtor because of their cut But a realtor can get the house better, in better shape or knows what to see in order higher sale and also has a bigger market that they can broadcast to. So I think we should do the two years, and again this is a lever to preserve more homes for Future families coming into noon. And, you know, there's always going to be turn downs, but I think we can reduce it with this.

Okay. The councilor over.

So what do we think about asking, you know, with a bunch of serial developers and I noticed a couple of them were at your meeting the other night. What about asking them how would they react? to a 24-month delay. You know, we're going to see now. Well, 24 months delay. What would you do?

We have a public opportunity to be heard next time. They can come anytime.

Make sure that we let them know.

I'm sure you will let them know.

Well, I don't know who they are and I- I don' t know who there are either so Just think it would be useful for our...I mean i'm not going to go into the ISD and find out who the developers are but some of the planning department could do that.

I think that- I respectfully disagree, this is a conversation if we're gonna have public conference, we don't do that with zoning ordinances and as developers You know, it's going to change.

OK, so we can there'll be an opportunity for anybody if you want me to do it and then I'll do whatever you want as a process

Anybody can notify anybody about the...

The other options that we're not exploring are the zoning options and incentives that other cities and towns have used to preserve instead of demolish or to add on instead of and so one question I have for you guys is how many of these demolitions turn into partials or replacements? Not all of them end up getting demolished. Some of them either being partial demolitions or It's hard to see them come

sort of made some decisions as to whether to do the total or to renovate the side of it. The other aspect that we'll get into is also the waiver. Does it then craft what they're going to do so they can seek a waiver and get away from having to have 18 months or 12 months or 24 months of delay? So, it's hard Get those data because it's not, they come in at zero and then they make the decision. A lot of times they're already making their decisions.

They've changed their mind during the process.

We just once set out the last meeting that come in for total and backtracked very quickly to do a renovation.

Okay, so we don't know really what the members are like.

There are no numbers, but I have something that helps answer your question. So I was able to speak with a planner from Watertown Moore After our last meeting, and I'm happy to get into that full conversation if the committee wants but just part pertaining to what you're asking. One of the contributing reasons, it's not the only reason or even the primary reason but one of the contributed reasons that they have so few demolition applications compared to us looking at proportionally that their housing stock is half the size of ours. even factoring that in, is because they adopted a pre-application process with staff. And so what's happening is they're meeting with developers who or not even Silber, anybody I should say. Anybody who wants to demo but they're meeting with them initially and trying to push them in a direction of preservation or some other benefit to the city so that's what's That's what's changing those numbers a little bit.

It is certainly not the primary factor in Watertown, but it's one of the factors that's contributing to them seeing fewer applications.

So more people are moving off in a different direction as guided by staff? Correct, okay.

So- Mr. Lewis had some comment on that?

No, I was just going to say, it's hard to have exact numbers. I think I maybe mentioned this at a previous meeting because we don't always know if necessarily the The delay was the actual factor that persuaded somebody to not demolish property. And also, you sort of have this one year delay period that then expires and then there's a two-year time period so there may be a house that came before the commission you know two and a half years ago and they still have time and we don't quite know yet if they're going to demolish it or not. We do occasionally see some folks who alter into from a total to a partial usually there's sort of a additional circumstance involved in those. Oftentimes, it's either a property that was so historic that after they applied for a total demo Landmark application came forward.

I do believe that was the case with the one on our most recent meeting, and then also sometimes the properties that have been in the adaptive reuse and have gone down that aspect or we've seen one where there was another opportunity where somebody subdivided a lot and moved the house so they're you know It does occasionally happen, but we don't have super hard statistics on it, unfortunately.

I think what I'm about to say has more to do with not the 24-month, but the waiver of changing... Waiver to come close to the 12 months because

Can we hold that comment then until we get to it? Okay.

I'm just wondering how passing this ordinance is affected by the other, you know, Councilor Oliver said there's lots of other ways to impact this. Once we do this ordinance, how does it... We've made a decision to do 24 months and then we look at these other three or four things that could be done but we've already got the 24 months in place.

My view of the process here is that we have opportunities to do work on the historic ordinance right now and I'd like to make sure that we do that work. There may be opportunities to do things on the zoning ordinance, but again in a context for that it's going to be difficult and different than this. So my hope is that we can get a sense where we're going with this so that we can bring this to the public and ultimately to the council. You don't have to vote for anything where you don't all the other levers available, but for purposes of our process it seems to me this is the best What's going on this item? Because Councilor Wright's data and the information derived from the city is that this ongoing demolition process is continuing. And I personally am not in a year to have us tied up for months more

While more buildings come down, while we have some opportunity to do something about it. But I do want to recognize colleagues and then I'll recognize myself. Councilor Kalis, were you thinking of anything?

Yeah, I did. I'd like to hear more about that pre-application, what goes on. And I think that's really interesting. So plus the 24 months?

Not sure exactly how the timing works out with that application in 24 months. Do you, so permission to elaborate more? Well the conversation does include zoning but it's just helpful context to understand the whole picture.

If I can suggest that there's a you know that as I understand it if someone comes in who wants to do a development project we have a development review process for

and that's specifically for things that need relief so special permit or variance and then also the ECOT is another thing that that's used for under our current regulations. The reason it works for them is because of the levers they can pull in that conversation. More on the zoning side, but also talking about things from a preservation standpoint too. I'm happy to elaborate and just- Well, let me suggest for you

That's a conversation I think may be worth having, but let's see if we can get through these issues because that goes to a whole other conversation.

It might be a good memo. But just because I think it's really interesting like what I don't If we can direct developers in certain directions regarding not talking about zoning but really talking about preservation, I think that's really interesting.

I think there's, we have some ideas when it comes to the waiver where we can incorporate that concept that we can also get into on this slide.

So I recognize now Councilor Roche has joined us and hasn't spoken, so I'm going to just give him that.

Okay, so thank you very much. Good to see everyone. The thing about the 24-hour, it's 24 hour. Sorry about being a summer associate at a land use meeting in another city. The theme of 24-month delay without some of the points I made, a few points. The thing about the 24-hour delay, that gets to part of what Albright was saying is it's all stick if we don't have other things like zoning changes. It's all sick and it's no carrot, and I don't feel comfortable supporting something even if I thought 24

It really doesn't make sense if we are not providing some sort of alternative to address some of these subsidy issues that I've raised in prior meetings. So, that's the domain. Don't think this makes sense That's the norm. The second issue is, and we keep kind of hovering around the edge with this problem, it may prevent teardowns but it will not all of these prevent the erosion of our inventory of smaller homes. So pick a number, 2,000 square feet, 2 500 square feet we have some current inventory of attainable homes and that inventory is shrinking every time a house gets knocked down. That's the most visible way that inventory shrinks, but it also shrinks

When somebody adds to a home, and I invite anyone who would like to go with me to take a walk around Truman Street this weekend because it's a perfect example. A bunch of 1800 square foot or so capes on very large lots and yes, there are teardowns but there are also significant additions and expansions and renovations. And what was, I think 40 smaller homes is now 25 or 20. And that's just going to keep reducing even if we of our shrinking inventory and figuring out ways to continue to supplement, add to

replenish that inventory, we're not really solving at least one of the larger problems that we're trying to solve by eliminating teardowns and as the preservation of opportunities for attainable homeownership. or Attainable Home Living. So this feels like Okay, thank you.

All right I'm going to recognize myself for this purpose. I'm gonna ask the committee to form a judgment and then go forward but we had a straw vote last time in favor of two years urged the committee to support that. The fact that we are not doing everything is not in my judgment a reason not to do something, This is a problem that we've been thinking about over and over again. We will not get access, I'm afraid, Councilor Dahmubed to the kind of economic data that you might want to have but we have extended in the past the historic that I think have made some impact in a positive direction. But we still have this ongoing reduction of the housing stock through demolition and it's going to continue unless we do something about it. And the zoning part of it is a conversation to be continued. I personally am not in favor

and so on by offering greater opportunity to build, which is one of the solutions I hear from my colleague. But I am personally in favor of trying to see if we can go forward with an extended delay period and disincentivizes, as we saw at the beginning of this conversation, the degree to which properties are torn down. The issue that you've talked about Expanding that stock I think is another conversation, but I don't think it should deter us from trying to move forward on this one. So I'd like to get a sense of the committee about where we are I'd like to see if there's any sentiment to go below 24 months at this point, and if so how many people in the committee are in favor? Anybody?

For me, it's one part of a solution missing the rest. So I can't vote for 24 months by itself.

I understand but I think we've got to get through this process

I'm kind of wondering if 18 makes more sense just as a way of moving up to 24, so I'm hovering right now.

We have 12 and 18 now.

Right now we have for National Register properties, we have 18. And for other properties we have 12. Just my own view is that if we're going to do this, we need to make enough of a move so that it makes an impact. To do it incrementally I think will not produce for us the kind of impact that we want to have and that's why i'm in favor of 24 from both categories and while I respect Councilor Getz's point of view about awaiting them, I think the waiting process will go on in whether it's preferably reserved anyway. But I think seeing a simple uniform time period sends a signal that we do not favor the demolition of properties in the city, and we want to make sure that there are alternatives considered. And that's why I'd like to see 24 across the board. But I want to get essentially committed. So I have one

Albright is not prepared to support 24. Okay, Councilor Dahmubed? Neither am I. Okay. Councilor Getz?

What I'd like to suggest is that we could talk through the waiver section before we decide where we stand with We're going to come back to the waiver section.

All of the whole ordinance is still not before us. We still have an opportunity to do that, but I'm just trying to say that otherwise we're not going to get the waiver. But at least I'd like a provisional conversation with at least to have a sense of where the department can go with this. And then we'll have the whole conversation again after we hear from the public. Okay, all right?

Can you just speak? Okay, because I actually would like to sort of consider up to 24 months because that's where it's sort of on at right now in terms of like a I'm stuck on the weightedness and you know the significance of the building is in front of us. in front of the commission. So that's where I'm sort of landing, but I'm not going to... I'm supportive of your 24 months, and I sort of would like us to have... And we will, okay? This is a straw vote? Okay. So that's what I will be supporting before then.

Okay. Okay, elsewhere Oliver?

Still a supporter coming from.

That was the right.

All right. Councilor Kalis, where are you now?

For the public hearing I think we go 24. Okay.

Council Gordon? Right. I think the sentiment of the committee is that provisionally we'll go with 24. And let's go into the next section because, again, I'm thinking we get into the waiver consultation.

OK.

Quick detour prior to waivers into demolition by neglect, which is something that... I'm sorry. I misled everyone. No, you're good. You're good

You really need to stop on the previous slide.

This is sort of within the previous slides and can just be a very big part Oh, wait a minute. There's been a request for a break on it at 9 o'clock. So let's take a brief bio break and I think everybody will agree.

Recording stopped.

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Thank you.

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You couldn't get to 34 hours.

Okay, folks. We're going to reconvene and continue our conversation. I just want to recognize we've been joined by a couple of colleagues from other committees which are welcome. Councilor Malakie for Ward 3 and Council Block for Ward 4.

I'm sorry. Board one. Yeah, yeah. These are available for anybody.

Let's move to the next slide, Demolition by Neglect.

Okay, yes, Demolution by Negrect.

Hopefully this one is pretty clear and somewhat more straightforward We talked through this a little bit last time. So the current ordinance for properties that are under demolition review Our current ordinance only addresses the destruction, like total destruction of the building due to a fire or some other act of God or something like that. But it does not require any basic upkeep or maintenance to ensure that the building does not fall into disrepair. This is something that we talked about, does exist within our landmark ordinance, does not exist under demolition delay. So the way that ordinance is written now, the highlighted portion at the bottom I'll read out just says requires that the owner takes reasonable steps to secure the building or structure against fire or other loss. or that the cause of the destruction was not otherwise due to the owner's negligence. So a proposal here would be to strengthen the demolition by neglect protections for preferably preserved properties

So this would be looking at properties that are currently under demolition delay, whether it be our current 12 months or up to 24 months. Essential effects here would be to disincentivize intentional degradation of the property either directly or through a lack of maintenance while delay is in effect. We do sometimes see things where, you know if a property's already not in a great state Not in a great state already. They can fall into a further state of disrepair if it's just sitting vacant for 12 months. It could, you know, holes in the roof or windows, windows falling out, doors being left open can lead to a building falling into a further state of disrepair and then potentially being in a situation where it's no longer structurally sound. And then preserving the building becomes harder if that option was going to be Pursuit. It also could create an opportunity for the building to remain in use during the delay period as opposed to just sitting vacant for the period of time, but one big potential limitation here would be the capacity for ISD

which would be carrying out all of our historic enforcement as they currently do to carry out any additional enforcement that would be required by this. So, that would We would sort of need to chat through with ISD and figure out what the capacity there would be prior to establishing this more clearly.

Just a couple of things I'll add. So we're obviously not getting into the language conversation today, but at the request of the chair, we did pull some examples that will discuss at the end We'll kind of elaborate on some of the options we can go with this. So I just say that to say don't worry about trying to figure out exactly what should be in the demo by neglect. will get into more if we need a bit as we proceed with the conversation.

We have that in our landmarks already. Correct, correct.

The differences with ISD capacity is there's a limited number of landmarks. And if we start talking about all of the preferably preserved properties, all the ones found preferably preserved, we just have to consult with them and make sure we're setting them up for something that can be reasonably enforced given everything else they have to enforce.

Sort of define more so what it is that we would be enforcing against looking out for, what would count as demolition by neglect versus something else?

Subject to some elaboration. Are the committee comfortable with concluding this? Everybody OK with that? Councilor Gordon, you just wanted a question.

I'm just wondering if these are just for buildings that have come before Histora Do we have any protections for older buildings where nobody's actually

No, so currently we don't have any protection. Like I said the only protection we have at all is it somehow the building that is currently being preferably preserved or currently under demolition delay is to be demolished by something that isn't a like a fire or something else. There are currently no protections if a building just falls into a state of disrepair and is not being subject to demolition delay. This proposal would also not include that, and that again is just going to the fact that there are so many properties that fall under 50-year threshold

So all I'd say is that I think it's worth, I mean, I know of a number of beautiful buildings that are purposely being left to decay. So I understand this isn't the forum to discuss that.

There could be an alternative, and some communities I understand that some ordinances along those lines that are broke broad than just state properties have gone through them on landmarks.

Yeah, and it's worth

In my ward a number of years ago, we had a house that was falling into disrepair. It was being neglected and as I recall or maybe Mr. Lee can help with it I mean, there's a process that you get involved with the Attorney General's office to do something about these homes. Do you know what this?

I can't speak to Newton's specific process, but in a previous role, I oversaw housing issues as well. And so I dealt with kind of figuring out what a municipality's limitations are in terms of involvement. There is such a thing as a community developing an ordinance for and so forth. So that's a separate issue because it's not in the preservation matter. The other thing is from a health and safety standpoint, sometimes to be involved if they can prove that the neglect is leading to some sort of issue like rodents, the list goes on.

And then the third aspect, and again this is not historic preservation but if there is a boarding situation where then there would be protective services or others. Things coming in, but you also have to be careful with things like that because they can sometimes be used as a weapon and create inequities where people of lesser means get parted by those rules. just because the concept of what is kept up is pretty subjective. So yeah, within this we can only talk about things that are within the commission's purview.

So it's not as bad as total neglect of a property that's not under the purview. I'm just trying to figure out where the line is drawn about what you can and can't do If it's the same issues that you're dealing with, whether it's under your purview or not.

I think we have language already in our ordinance and we can revisit it but I think the question before the committee right now just provisionally would you like to have demolition by neglect or preferably preserved property?

Yeah, I would like to understand from a legal perspective how it interacts with Why it was that the city couldn't do anything about that other property that I'm referring to in my ward. And I think there are other issues outside of ISD that prevent them from doing things. So, I think we should look more into it is what I'm suggesting

So for next time, if there's some, maybe you have a conversation with Councilor Albright about her example. I think it's the same. Is this the house that was torn down ultimately?

Ultimately, it was torn out.

That allowed? That was the safety issue I think at that point. Councilor Dahmubed, just on this issue?

Yeah it's just a clarification so you fully understand it. So we would basically say to secure the building to structure against fire, blah, blah. And also to keep it at a habitable quality or something along those lines?

That's essentially what it is. If you want, we can pull up the example. But the broad strokes are are the gutters completely hanging off, therefore water can get into the building. Therefore it's not habitable. The habitable piece is a big part of that. and our senior planner on the preservation team, Kim has a lot of experience with this in Brookline. It's looking for those obvious factors that would lead to things like mold water seeping in rodents

structural issues um like it would have to be like if a major if a hole comes in the roof or chimney falls off windows are broken in something like that that would could lead to further issues that would make the home unhattable.

But something like faded paint... Yeah, right.

And the part that says create an opportunity for buildings remaining in use during the delay period...

Do we currently not allow the building to be in use during the delay period? We do allow it. What they do is, they don't want to have making broad generalizations obviously every situation is different but people don't want the headache of maintaining it and so they're just doing the bare minimum to make sure they're compliant with what the existing language that we have that's very limited But if the requirements are strict enough, potentially you can't say they will definitely do this. They might opt to rent it out during that delay period so they have fewer headaches to worry about with You know, checking in on the property.

Sorry if I could just so basically saying we're requiring you to kind of keep We're costing you enough money in maintenance that it makes sense for you to rent it effectively during the demo delay period. to cover your operating costs effectively is kind of like the math on how that works.

Potentially, I can't guarantee that would be the outcome.

That's a big picture thinking or that it would maybe make them

There's also the possibility that whatever deal might be underpinning the development falls through, in which case we don't want a building that's You know, depreciated to the extent that it needs to be demolished one way or the other. We'd like to have the structure preserved so even if the development falls through they could sell it to somebody who can hopefully bring it back to life again.

I just wanted to add, we do sometimes like all get calls and stuff about oftentimes or not every time again Trump generalizations here but We do see circumstances where a developer someone will purchase a home sometimes a construction fence might go up even before they've applied to historic or as soon as the demolition goes on or something and then it just sits there with a construction for up to 12 months, and in that time you know any number of things can and happen as it degrades. So we'll get calls about people say, oh, it looks like, you know, it's not in a great state or maybe something happened to one of the windows. It looks like the doors open, stuff like that. We've gotten calls and stuff about that before. And this would sort Thank you for joining us. I wasn't good structural condition on day one. Ideally, it would be at the end of the delay as well or at any time there with him.

Okay, I think that's again in the interest of sort of moving along provisionally let's Subject to conversations with ISD, include that in the draft or when we get to a conversation with the public because I think they need to know that could be part of the ordinance. Again, the committee has some judgment opportunities still to take any and all of these things and put them in a different place. So do you want to go to the next one?

I think this is where some of the conversation will start to make a little more sense as we talk about the waiver and how The demo delay piece is obviously one part of the conversation, but this sets it up for future changes as well. So David's gonna cover this one.

Yeah and we have some information about the waiver here. We actually have two slides about the waivers It may make sense for us to present them both together in order to give you guys a holistic package of all the things that we're looking at, so if that's okay. So starting looking at our current waiver In the instance of a total demolition, an applicant may apply for a waiver of demolition delay after four months have passed. If they're seeking a partial demolition, they may apply for that waiver immediately. So how that would work is the commission first looks at the existing house takes a vote on whether or not to find it preferably preserved. And then if they're doing a partial demolition, the commission immediately looks at those plans and can waive those based upon that versus total demo. They're just looking at the historic house, no view of the plans initially, then they can come back after four months. it's sort of as I think Doug can speak to, I think we've heard from developers and commissioners and people alike that it can have the effect of

are current 12-month demolition delay effectively serving as a four-month demolition delay so long as plans can get approved. We have a couple proposals, suggestions, solutions here. One of these would be to eliminate The partial demolition would become the only pathway to shorten that delay period from 12 months or whatever it be. which would incentivize a partial demolition over a total demolition. And then the delay period would no longer, what I was saying of being sort of an effective four month delay and then the limited.

This goes back to the funnel analogy, so this is for the people who are adamant about waiting out the delay So that's what we're saying at this point. How can we make them look at partial versus total?

Yeah, and then to go to the potential limitations here is that the NHC would no longer review any proposed plans for contextual and architectural compatibility. If somebody does want to do a full demolition, if they chose to wait out the waiver, you know, the NHG would have no say over what those plans may look like. Another option could be to, instead of eliminating it altogether, would be to extend that waiver timeline to whatever period of time seems right, whether it's doubling it, making it more than that. At some point in time, shorter than whatever the demolition delay ends up being. This again could incentivize partial demolition as the waiver period for total demolitions would still be longer than the partial demolitions. It could prolong carrying costs while

waiting out a delay while the extended waiver instead of eliminating it altogether would still allow NHC that opportunity to review that proposed plan for new construction in the case of a total demolition. The potential limitations, similar to earlier as we talked about in certain instances the market value of new construction could still make waiting that delay period out are financially feasible in certain instances. Do you have anything to add on this one, Doug, before I move to others?

No, the power of the waiver

Yeah, so in this case it would be you know the solutions here suggestions here would be either eliminating a waiver for sort of full demolition still for a full demolition and still allowing it the same. In both these instances, I mean, it's ultimately... It's ultimately up to you guys. You could still change it in these proposals we've suggested the partial would stay as it is now, and this would be for full demolition would be the changes.

That's a recap. We saw in the first not last time but the time before when he presented the slides there was an example of a partial that got approved the night it came into the commission. It didn't have to be delayed, it was deemed preferably preserved but the commission agreed to let it go forward because there was a partial and fairly successful partial, if I recall from the images that we saw. So the proposal would be to preserve in any of these scenarios an instant partial approval. but a full demolition would be either unwaivable or waivable at a further period of time than we currently have for four months. Mr. Courtney, did you want to add anything to that?

Yeah so the power of waiver then is to try to get what's coming in there to be more compatible with the surrounding area. If you don't have the option for a waiver, we would not have the ability to exert that influence and certainly with the four months if the delays carried over 24 months We have a little more power to do one of the balances we have in reviewing per waiver, which is knowing they could just wait another eight months. All of a sudden, we have a little more power to say that's more what we want.

So I think this is an interesting policy choice that I think the committee may not decide completely tonight but I'm going to frame it is I hear it from Mr. Lewis and the chair that if you have no bill in no waiver process first place, that takes a bunch of things off the commission's agenda because they keep coming back for waiver but that's not how to do it one way or another The question is, is the delay period that's waivable, whatever that period is, suppose it's 12 months, does that become effectively the demo delay? and so on. Our community has the ability, and this was a conversation I recall the last time we redid the ordinance whether there should be delayed waiver at all.

So I think that's a policy choice the committee You may not be able to decide it completely, but I think the question is, is the ability of the commission You know, which is not their job as preservation, not being a special permit granting authority. Is that Good enough and important enough that we would want to, even if we extended it still provide it or do we want to say We would rather have the delay period be an extended period of time. And that's enough to try and make sure that people come through the partial gate rather than giving them the total demolition gate for a shorter period of time. And so this is one where We've got to come to conclusion. I will tell you that I'm personally leaning in favor of not having a waiver simply because I think that pushes the partial opportunity into a much more

We wanted to present the next slide before we just...

So the next piece that we had was sort of adding additional codifying and adding additional criteria to the existing waiver Make this whole presentation a little more holistic here. So the current waiver criteria, which is that ideally commissioners voting on whether or not proposed plans will mitigate the loss of the historic building. That is something that sits within the current NHC rules and regulations So a suggestion of ours would be to codify criteria, maybe more specific criteria within our ordinance instead of just having them sit within the rules and regulations. Another idea that we had was that You know, I think something that we kind of my personal opinion, my personal view. And I think, you know, a sort of idea here is that if the property is ultimately torn down then sort of the goal

preservation, the goal of preserving a property and preserving history in the city is not met. And if we can't ultimately sort of eliminate demolition altogether, is there a way that demolitions can be used to sort of help meet other city goals? And so that would be in addition to codifying criteria as it relates to the design, requiring an application for a waiver. either demonstrates a hardship or meets an additional city goal. So the hardship could either be things as it relates New property or new construction is required for accessibility standards based on very specific guidelines. or if a partial demolition could potentially be not an option due to energy codes. I believe that was something that was brought up at our last meeting, was the difficulty sometimes in meeting energy codes and if somebody could provide an analysis

A partial demolition was infeasible for that reason, then they could grant a waiver based on that. In addition there are other city goals such as sustainability this is where something like Architectural salvage could come in saving materials within the existing building, donating or selling those to an architectural salvage to allow for those materials to be saved and potentially reused. Also potentially a documentation Thank you for watching. Potentially also housing. This is something that, you know, maybe somebody goes through our existing sort of standards like adaptive reuse or if it's a, you Maybe that's something the NHD could consider as if an additional unit is added or something like that.

Ideally, this would give the NHE some greater discretion, like Doug said sort of put more stakes on the waiver and make sure that you know Something that is being granted a waiver is not just something that like kind of fits in a little bit with the neighborhood, but it's actually a really good architectural design. and it either meets a city goal or demonstrates that there is a real hardship there. Obviously, the potential limitations is that discretion that decision-making ultimately is up to NHC authority and also, you know the waiver still results in either a total or partial loss of a historic building.

And just a clarifying point with this, what we're proposing but obviously you can rework this how do you see fit is The commission would have the discretion to decide which levers they want to pull. We're not saying you have to meet all of these criterias or you have a hardship, it will be up to the Commission to decide what is sufficient out of a choice of options that they can look at. So giving them more leverage and I think the emphasis with this is it doesn't just apply to full demo, it's also partial so for example an outcome could be They come in, they want to demo the whole thing. They could say well maybe if you're willing to conserve more green space if you do the partial demo route and rework this building Maybe we'll grant the waiver. So it gives them a lot more flexibility. This isn't just looking at full demo, this is also partial as well.

So that's where we are. Thank you for that. And I think there is a basic policy decision right now, we have a waiver and the question is do we maintain it?

This sounds very interesting to me. One question I would have. Well, first of all, if you're letting these houses go and you end up with a white stucco box that we have all over the city is, you know, it's a terrible outcome. So if anything that you can do to avoid ending up with the white stucco box of, you So I wouldn't want to give up the waiver altogether, even for a full demo if they want to come in because at least you're preserving the context of the neighborhood and that the house is gone but at least the house that's replacing it isn't one of those white stucco buildings. boxes, and to me that meets a city goal. I'm wondering if in a partial demo if they wanted to preserve a house and add a unit for example to meet the housing goal You know, not low income but affordable and attainable price unit.

But the zoning didn't work. If a single family zone and they want to add a unit how do you deal with that? Yeah, so where you means it has to be under the same ownership and we don't necessarily want that.

Well, I think if I can clarify it right now, the zoning wouldn't allow that outcome.

Okay, so that's not going to be allowed under this?

You could have that an outcome if the zoning changed but right now that's

Yeah, the way this docket item is written is we only have the scope of the demo delay itself. So we can't introduce zoning through demo delay. So right now what we're saying, so what you could do under this limitation or limitation is a bad word. Under the scope of this document item is under existing pathways, could you add a unit whether it's an ADU? whether it's a conversion. I mean, there's different ways they can do it. Obviously you have to factor in like the commission couldn't say if you make it multifamily then we'll give you the waiver and if because multifamily requires a special permit. So they'd have to be like careful about how you apply that.

And I think, not to pay you off but I think that's why having a list of criteria is helpful is that there's sort of a bunch of things and it's sort Meet one of these options and have your plans approved so that we ensure it still fits within the architectural character.

So it could be that you approve something that has to go in with a special permit? If they get a special permit, they can do it because you've approved it.

You would avoid that scenario just because it would be so...

Yeah, ideally probably not but I guess it could work that way. But it could be something where an additional unit is allowed through adaptive reuse so the commission signs off on it because the plans are approved and there's a unit added or You know, the plans are approved and they're going to salvage portions of the house or the plans were approved. And they showed that energy code didn't allow a partial demolition, whatever The secondary goal may be that sort of a list of things that are available by Wright as existing. and then the plans are also approved so that there is more stakes to the NHC actually granting a waiver in that it isn't just a house that is still much bigger and kind of out of context with the neighborhood but fits in a little bit.

Cornelius, if he has an opinion either way.

Yeah, I think what was intriguing as I was talking to David and Amanda about this, which is if it seems like there's a lot of indication for that longer delay period. But if we could use some of the other goals of the city in housing So even though you may end up losing the house, you're getting some other benefits to the city.

I think that the committee need to wrestle with this a bit because by definition, the waiver for variance assures the house comes down. That's that's the loss here, you're mitigating the loss by allowing a replacement structure that has certain characteristics so that's That's the tricky problem and the one we still face right now because it's four months. A lot of the properties go through, I think it's supposed to 12 months. There are four months they come in and they make a showing. The commission agrees with it and then the house comes down. So if the purpose of demolition delay is to preserve the structure, the more waiver opportunity you have or the sooner waiver opportunity unless you're preserving the structure and you're really getting into the review of the replacement. So that's the kind of policy choice that we're, at least we have that choice now at four months. The question is if we go to a longer period of time

Do we want to maintain the waiver, and under what conditions? Or do we rather not unless you incentivize partial as the only waiver.

I have a question. Consider the condition of the building, whether it's preferably preserved? So if i have a if I have A building that would require a ton of work habitable or have them long-term, or modern level of an envelope. Is that part of the preferably preserved?

We're generally almost at the extreme. Everybody comes in with an injury report saying it has to come down because of The only time we'll say, you know, we had one in where like there's a tree growing through the roof and that clearly is nothing left there to preserve. Typically I think most houses can be renovated, just question time and money.

So the argument for preserving Brookside Avenue and the fact that the issue of the white stucco box and the alternative was a new building that was more in keeping with the architecture of the neighborhood. The combination of 24 months and leaving a waiver as it is, the 24 months not hours Commission has much greater leverage to insist upon more along the lines of criteria that was proposing or more along the line of something historically consistent, if not preserved in a building. I think the 48 months is the sick and the waiver 24.

I'll tell you what, you just look at me and I'll just say 24 months. The 24 months is where the impact is going to come and leaving the waiver as it is doesn't vitiate the 24 months. What it does is it allows for greater leverage, I really want to have the committee

is that if you allow a waiver with, let's put it this way, more teeth to it because you've got the longer delay period and then you've You're still going to have a better design, more expensive bigger house. So the question is and we still you know I hope we can do something on the zoning side that maybe makes it less expensive and that's a whole other conversation we need to have. But it does assure that the property comes down and the problem that poses for me, but I think the committee has to come to a conclusion here is that opportunity to do a better job of design review which is really what's going on here

is worth the change that we're going through in order to give the commission more horsepower to design the building that replaces it? Or are we trying to say, let's save the building and save it If possible, and go to partial if necessary. That's the choice that I think we've got to... We haven't decided that but I think that's a fundamental question we have to resolve if we want to make this Wright, and I'll go around to Councilor Devson and Councilor Dahmubed.

And Councilor Malakie So I originally was kind of on the fence of increasing the waiver to a year, but What we're trying to do is preserve the house. And so I think getting rid of the waiver because they can come in for a partial and then you make those changes, but they can do it right away basically and come in You know, at the meeting they show their drawings and they get it done. So someone buys a house and we take a look at it, you know, family buys the house and they want to bump out the kitchen in an animal, you Family Group. They can come in one meeting and historic and show their plans, and they could be done. And this now we get rid of the waiver like Baker said, it's just lengthening or lessening when the down is going to be.

And we're trying to increase The dental delay to have less teardowns. So I say we just get rid of the waiver now, see how it goes. We can always come back and look at it another time but Yeah, I think we should go that way. Right now there are certain people who come in and they're just going to wait it out. And some of them aren't here on the screen right now. And they're going to wait it out now. Are you going to weight it up for the next 12 or six months? We'll find out. But there are others that do, you know, Waver, and they get torn down. But we're trying to preserve houses, and that's not helping.

So Councilor Getz, then Councilor Dahmubed, then Councillor Malakie.

Thank you, Chair. I need to sit with this for a little bit because I sort of concur with Councilor Wright that, you know, what we want to do is we want incentivize people going through the correction. But then if we lose the opportunity to have any sort of input, that's tragic You know, I think of it as completely gone. But you also think that somewhat a little concerned about this sort of alternate, you know, fulfillment of city goals because I sort of think that this is the purview of the preservation of historic assets for the city. So I do not feel in terms of this extended timeline for the full demo, I sort of feel as if what we need to do is make the distinction between full and partials just right away.

And I'm a little concerned about a partial going all the way through, you know from getting the parker plea preserved to getting the ability to execute in terms of getting the approval on the same night. I kind of look like a two, that may be a lot of work but i think that many times people don't even know when a property is up hopefully the notification will happen so that then people show up at the meeting, but many times there are people who don't even attend and they're not able to attend for just one meeting. So I'd like it to be a two-meeting for the partials in terms of adhering But, you know in terms of incentivizing the shift from full to partial I need to sit with this a little bit because I sort of think of it as being maybe there is benefit in terms the ability to apply for a waiver, eight months to a year versus four months.

I think that's too short and for a full demo coming to this table getting plans approved That's a real hit. You know, I think it needs to be at least eight to 12 months so that then there's a little bit more play or a little There's a big distinction in my mind between the partial and full.

Councilor Dahmubed? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'm similar to you, Councilor Getz. I'm just kind of struggling with this in part because actually on the one hand, no offense to the NHC and Mr. Cornelius and the commissioners actually don't think that we should be dictating design big picture philosophically On the other hand, I like the idea that we get an opportunity to have some levers here and which is why I'm kind of interested in like these kind of criteria-based levers of what other goals can we guide you towards? And I'm trying to understand I forget if it was Chair Baker, if it's you Ms. Wolf who said that there are other towns that have these kinds of more restrictive waiver? Am I characterizing that correctly or?

So there's a David Chyman because he's the expert but there's many communities don't have any type of waiver option. What they have instead is they don't call it a waiver, they just say well if you face some sort of hardship like accessibility, condition of the building. that's a consideration like so they in effect kind of have a waiver but it's not as formal as yeah no also communities I think we brought up Lexington last time that have

a shorter delay period for certain property projects that have like site plan approval for additional units or other things. And that is sort of where that kind of criteria comes from. I also think just sort of big picture too, a thought is kind of framing this talk of the waiver is sort What Amanda presented at the beginning of the funnel of ideally a longer delay, stretched out waiver period. in general will discourage more people from applying for demo in the first place. And ideally that will also It incentivizes people to go through partial or something, but if people are really dead set on doing a total demo this is where I think there is potentially some value in having a waiver with a little more teeth.

This is also where there were some questions about the Watertown thing. This essentially gives you the leverage that Watertown has in their pre-application meetings, not the same type of leverage but It gives you that opportunity for the commission in a public setting to have that conversation of like, hey, you're coming in for full demo. Let's talk about an alternative and we can craft the language in a way where certain things are given more weight than others. For example, you could say partial demo over full demo is weighted more than a sustainability goal. We can craft it any different ways to make sure it's prioritizing the things that the city council wants prioritized.

And on the four month You know, the idea that it ultimately functions as a four-month demo delay. you don't have to approve it at the four month mark. And my understanding is that the processes that they might come in four months, you'll say go back and do these things. They come again, so go back. That could go on for a year. and at a certain point they say enough is enough we'll just wait three months left in the thing and we'll do what we want okay um all right that's and approximately you know Well, I guess this was kind of what we're getting into earlier. How many come and then say, oh you're right, we'll switch to partial now? Having that number would be helpful but without that, I think I'm good on questions.

If you don't mind,

Thank you. So I'm not having seen that earlier part of the presentation. We'll catch up on that later. I intend to agree with the chair and vice-chair I guess I would like to try not having a waiver at all in the effort to discourage purchases of properties, tear them down in the first place. Make that less attractive. I also have sort of questions about these possible criteria if they were to be a waiver on the that could prevent unintended barriers to ADA and energy improvements. I think the, so we have the stretch code mandatory electrification

I think that code, in a sense, incentivizes keeping like an addition from not becoming too large because then it triggers the stricter energy requirements if I'm Remembering correctly, but also I think it's the people on the Historical Commission. They're there because hopefully they have some expertise in historical preservation. I don't expect any of them to necessarily know if an applicant comes in and says, I can't make this energy efficient. I don't know how they're going to judge if that's a true statement or not.

Let me suggest that that's One of the questions, if we want to waiver these additional standards and what should the standards be? But I think there's grounds for a waiver which are mitigate the loss plus and then Mr. Lewis is giving us a bunch of pluses we don't have to buy all of the plus especially Disney doesn't stand if that's are going to make the waiver of opportunity desirable enough that people will want to pursue that. I mean, the committee I'm talking about, not the applicant yet. But I want to get everybody here .

I also think Option of partial demolition has kind of the same effect of keeping the home more in keeping with the neighborhood because what you're likely going to be keeping is the front of

Let me, I'm going to just, Councilor Farrell, you had your hand up for this.

Thank you very much. I'm in favor of having the waiver if what you are saying and what Councilor Wright is saying that essentially people would tear down a building and if you want to save the building, the only way to try to save it in my opinion is to have a waiver period at which you say the only things we'll give There's nothing else that helps us reach one of the other goals in the city. But a waiver that allows a person to demolish the building anyway, you have achieved the primary goal of saving the building So I think you could list out some pretty stringent waiver issues and that would be the only way we really can control trying to save the actual building. Otherwise, I think the building is going to go.

Well, I think that right now there's a four-month period. Whatever stringent criteria you put on the waiver is a period of time right now with four months and I think there's some dissatisfaction At least in the 12-month category, I personally wouldn't maintain four months if we go to a longer period of time. But again, I understand where you're going.

It's not the delay. If they have a choice of delaying and there are very stringent, clear goals that we want them to pay attention to. And one of them is you're not gonna demolish this building. If you wanna demolish the building, do you wanna wait 24 months?

That effectively says that you don't have a demolition option in the 24-month period. You may have other options, whatever they are, partial or something else but I'm sensing, I'm just trying to get a sense of where the committee is. But Councilor Dahmubed?

Yeah, sorry, I think to clarify, Councilor Farrell You're saying you wouldn't be allowed to demo within the 24 months unless perhaps you're meeting some other goals. I'm saying if you're going to...

Well, yeah. It's worth the conversation because there's one option that I think would be possible but the goals have to be really clear and we have to agree if it is going to get demolished within 24 months and you got to end up with a pretty spectacular alternative renovation or rebuilding. Or you get something like two houses that meet some other architectural goals. I know it's a zoning issue.

You're not even allowed to think about it. That was for Block.

Thank you, Chair. I'm leery about bringing in other cities We've got energy goals, we've got housing goals It's an interesting conversation. The other thing, I just hear this sort of positive feeling about partial demolition. We had an actual... Situation and land use, and the partial demolition basically eliminated the house.

I mean it went down to its studs and a couple of walls were retained so i hope that you'll define partial Demolition in a way that doesn't allow it to become a day That's your job to wrestle with.

I think that just to respond to that limited point, it seems to me that if you allow a waiver for partial demolition the commission is going to have the ability to say That's not partial enough. It's really effectively a rebuild, and we're not going to vote for that. So I think if you knew there is some process just to clarify the point if

say that staff goes down the path of retaining some sort of waiver if clarifying what the definition of partial demo is would make would impact people's decisions, that's also something you could do as part of this. We're not trying to say this is your only route. We may have to adjust other things depending on the graph we got.

I just want to say I'm a little biased here because I appreciate you trying to remove the waivers, because we were taking up a lot more of our time and maybe later when they have many more waivers in there. Now in terms of if you have the waiver, I would argue that that minimum four months is good because then you have a big delta 20 months as my leverage against the applicants to get something done. As you can send that out, all of a sudden my leverage gets less and less. As there's longer time they just decide to just go wait it out and not bother listening to our comments. The other reason I think it's good to have a waiver, which a lot of people are complaining about is the house being torn down. Lots of complaints about what's going up instead. So if we don't have

I was just going to reiterate the point that Mr. Cornelius just made

I mean, you say you don't have the numbers, but do you have any sense of all the demos that come in that you try to persuade to do Get a waiver and do it, build the house that you approve of as opposed to whatever they're going to do at the end. Do you have any sense? Is it half of them? Is

The last general numbers I had were that the NHC of the properties that came before the NHCs about half, a little more than half got preferably preserved, got the demo delay and has currently constructed half of those went for a waiver. And then I believe it was somewhere around 75% ultimately within that eight month period got the waiver. So it's not like everybody who comes before NHC is going through the waiver process anyway. 18%.

It sounds like more like 75% get the waiver.

75 of those who go through the waiver process, but let me see if I can find... Only half go through

just 25% I think actually applies for the waiver and then 75% of those so that gives you about 18%.

Yeah, I don't know if those numbers are right or wrong. But I'll tell you that I don t want any more white stucco boxes we have enough of those and if you're going to prevent even 25 white stu cko boxes it's worth having a waiver.

So let's see where we are in the committee. I think we've talked about...

It's not just about the numbers. The fact that they're not necessarily having the opportunity to have the conversation about partial versus full demo under the current model, so it's not like That opportunity isn't there, so it's not like there's that clear delineation of at this point they're changing their track.

So it's almost like the pre-application process, that's what you're using the waiver for. Exactly. So that makes a lot of sense to me.

All right, so let's see where we are in the committee. Mr. Lewis?

I just wanted to just... From 2022 through... June 2022 to December 2024, about 15% of the total applications NHC received ultimately went through the process and received.

Yeah, of those that initially came forward.

So not a huge percentage. That was really big.

All right, so let's just get a sense of the committee on where we are. Have you heard all this discussion? How many people would like to hear it? Thank you. Have you at least presumptively heard this discussion? Members of the committee, I'd like to get a sense of whether do you want a waiver or no waiver. If there is a waiver then we can talk about the time and conditions But let me just send some consent. Having heard all of this conversation, how many members of the committee want to waive? One, two, three.

I'm sorry, but I want to make a distinction between full and partial.

Well no, we're assuming...I'm sorry. Let me be clear. that at least right now the commission has the ability to make it partial, to waive the demolition delay completely if there's a partial. That I don't hear of changing, okay? Okay, so there was an incentive right now under the current arrangements to do a partial. The question is, is that a big incentive or you know, do we want to make it a different incentive by saying you can't do it for anything else? Okay so that's Don't hear the committee wanting to say a partial demolition has to wait 24 months or whatever period of time. Okay? Now, we understand the problem that Councilor Block has articulated and we've got to solve that problem. But let's just be clear about that. Okay? So partial is available Right away.

Okay, just like it was at the commission meeting a number of weeks ago where they said that building coming in at the very end there was a partial and I said looks good, let's go. Right? But we're talking about for a full demo should there be a waiver and if we can talk about the conditions and about the time but I just want to see because if you have a waiver, the building will come down and you'll have some control over what replaces it but the building would come down. And so if you think that is more likely to happen than not and they want to control it, then you support the waiver. If you say I really wanna make clear But I don't want the building to come down unless, you know, then you won't. Right? But that's where we've got to go. So I heard for people who are in favor of a waiver to be retained for full demo. Members of the committee in favor of that waiver? Let me just be clear. Councilor Dahmubed, yes.

What are we going on? Yes. No, that's for Kalis, yes. That's for Baker, no. No.

I just need to understand.

Where we are. So I've got one, two, three in favor of a waiver. Right. I've gotten 1, 2, 3, 4 against the waiver and an extension. Do you want control over the results or not? No. All right, now. For purposes of moving this conversation forward, I'm going to assume that the majority of the committee will prevail in sense of where we present. in the public hearing conversation. The whole committee can make a change in its mind because some people may come into us and say, I don't want any more white boxes and this really matters a lot or whatever that is persuaded three. because this is clearly not, you know, about what we should be doing. So but for provisional For granting purposes for a conversation with the public, I think we've got to move forward as I've indicated without a waiver of provision.

Now if the public informs us and the members you know we're going to have that input and then we may change our mind Okay? Because we haven't decided anything for final purposes, but we've got to get something moving forward.

Yes? One thing that I might suggest if the council's in favor is Since it sounds like some of the hesitancy is just wanting to understand the waiver criteria concept more or just kind of what that would look like. And since the vote was split Eliminating the waiver is taking out of the exception of the ordinance. So text-wise, that's quick work on our part. So what I'm asking is do you want us to prepare language for both options? Given that it would be a reasonable within our capacity, asking.

It's a fair question. I'm going to answer the question. Is there a question?

And look, I think that it makes sense to have both because the committee is divided. It's not overwhelming one way or another. and we may be informed by that. But I think that the, we should present the conclusion we've reached as provisional preclude when I say it but I don't think the process is wasted if you're willing to spend some time thinking about that I think the point is that what I'm hearing from members again, colleagues correctly, is that an incentive for the waiver is The design review power that's more robust than it is now because you've got, but I think that the term at least if that were to emerge, it might be oughta be longer than four months. I mean because otherwise we've got a four month delay just like we do now. We just increased the incentive

for people to come in with the delay rather than conserve the house. So that's an element that I think we have to sort out. But for purposes of planning, if you I don't think it's a waste of time because we may end up there. All right? I don' want to pre-judge where the committee is ultimately leading them out. Okay, yes, Councilor Halliman.

But I do need that. Can we get that? I don't know when this public hearing is going to take place.

Well, I'm beginning to rethink my calendar because this process is such that I'm not sure I want to take anything out through a public comment period until we've got A little more clarity about where we are. And while I'm here not to have this extend into the holidays for all the reasons that we all understand, It's better to cook this properly than we do it in Russian. Okay?

So... My point was I don't want to go to a public comment session like we did, forget what it was last term where the council saw Additional items at the exact moment we open the public comment. I don't want to do that again.

That's fair. Thank you, Chair.

We'll have another opportunity before the public meeting.

I think so, because I think we've got first place at 10-10. I don't know about everybody else, but you're Pasty begins to diminish after a certain point in time. And we have some technical amendments that we haven't even had a chance to talk about, which are important I think well. So what I'm going to suggest is this I think we've had an opportunity to click on this fairly thoroughly for a while. Before you, can you just show us the rest of the slides? Just so we know what we're talking about in the balance of this.

Yes, so The next two slides are, in essence, an expansion of the criteria for the waiver. So if you want we can group those into our conversation next time. We just wanted to explain how There was a lot of questions about the listing requirement last time, whether or not we force people to list their property. So we did a little more research into kind of how that would work, the limitations of that as well as a related housekeeping item that we recommend really regardless. And then the other item was, this is apologies for the animations, I like to break things up. The other thing was the salvage program which again we were thinking in terms of a criteria for a way work and then Last but not least was housekeeping, which Law was going to speak to.

And then I've provided some links, which I will make sure you have a copy of this because this is a request that was made afterward of some example language for some of these things already exists.

So what I'm going to suggest is that you get all of that to the clerk and it could be attached to a report, and then we'll use that as part of the foundation for the next conversation. but I'm going to suggest based on this conversation tonight that we not go to public comment next time as much as i'd love to be able to do that because I think we need to have Some level of clarity among ourselves about what we're going to ask the public to comment about to pick up on Councilor Oliver's point. And it means, Mr. Cornelius, you may be invited back

You know what that shrug means to me? You can invite me anytime you want. It may be a waiver of your exercise.

But I appreciate the thoughtfulness that's gone into all of these comments tonight. Before we close out the discussion, I just want to say that we appreciate also the time and effort that's been put in along with Bernadius and others to try and help us frame a decision that we can follow through and think through. My hope is that even though it may take us a little longer to get there, that we will end up in something that will improve the quality of life We just have to move hold on all of these items, so I'll accept a motion to hold all of them. By the way, Councilor Block, we haven't talked at all about your... Okay. It's a relatively simple conversation by comparison, I think.

At that point, everybody will be frosted and say yes to whatever we want. Who knows? All right. The other items were just to get an update on some of the VCOD provision amendments that could be done and so forth. Thank you. to give us some idea of some of the things that could fall into either category, but you're not presenting in a recommendation at that point.

But you do want us to present what the two categories would be?

It would be, well we don't have to. We can hold these items and defer them until later. I'd rather have you spend your time on this rather than that, just because of the timing. You have limited time and I'm a little concerned I would move hold on these items and then decide when we bring them up. And maybe it's better to wait on them because we're not going to act on them right away anyway.

My suggestion, just based on kind of workload is We wait on those, but we can get started on preparing now. But just given that I've only been here Under four months. It's going to take me a little more time to catch up on these things.

So let me just move, hold on those two items and then we'll ask you to do those next month. We're just gonna be all historic All the time. More David. Happy to be here.

But I think I would

Use what you've heard tonight and produce sort of a modified version of what we've got so that we can reach some degree of clarity as a committee, and then bring it out to the public for comments. All right. So motion to hold on these last two items, 184-26 and 185-26. All those in favor? Opposed? I'm not really opposed. Abstention? No. Okay. We'll hold those. All right, folks, I appreciate your time and effort. And so for the public who are watching, we will not have a public comment period next time until we get a chance to do this on the back.

I don't think you voted to hold on the delay. Thank you for this. Sorry. I think we did, yeah. You know...

Time flies when you're having fun. All right, I'll note the adjournments in order.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, very good. I might get one for you