Zoning & Planning Committee - March 23, 2026

Thanks for watching!

She was happier once I was with her. Yeah, I'd like to go to the movies, but I have to go. But now I'm going to see you.

It's bad.

We don't have much.

Well, I can't imagine what it was like in there. What do you mean?

What, the noise?

Yeah.

Well, they've only started after.

They just started right now.

Oh.

Yeah. Just when we were doing our bathrooms up here, it was going on.

Wow.

All of these are questions that were sent ahead of time. It's the show from Rental Summer. I love Bobbitt. Very nice of him.

Yeah, I know some folks like Paper and Pen, so.

Pen? Oh, yeah. Yeah, a little pen pen.

Is this thing sticking on paper?

Oh, this is very old school. Yeah, that's right.

Okay, welcome everyone. Today is a regularly scheduled meeting of the Zellman and Planning Committee and in the room We have Councilor Getz, Councilor Oliver, Councilor Albright, and Councilor Gordon on the committee. Online, we have Councilor Kalis, Councilor Dahmubed, and Councilor Baker. Okay, and People not, Councilor's not on the committee. It is, Councilor's, Art?

He's out on two. Oh, did I have except Kalis?

No?

Yeah, she did. She did.

Okay. Well, you're here to face them. Yeah, no, I'm making words. and then Matt.

I don't have and I should mention I don't have a working camera for reasons I don't understand so that's it.

Thank you. And not on the committee, but city councilor in the room is Councilor Shawn Roach. And the first item we're going to talk about is, I'll read it in, is 22-26. Are we going to do the pre-budget? Okay. Request for a pre-budget planning discussion. Councilors Baker, Wright, Farrell, Getz requesting a preliminary discussion with the planning department. Inspectional Services Department and CPA program to prepare for the committee's FY27 budget review of these departments and programs. So let's take the planning department and we have Ms. Wewell. The Acting Director of Planning. And I don't know if you saw the questions ahead of time at all or not.

Yeah, I just, they just came in my inbox. So I think I've been looking over them, but I think I'm happy to take any more. And I think the intent from our pre-discussion with the chair and vice chair is just to note them won't have a response tonight, but happy to provide a more comprehensive response in advance of our budget meeting.

Great. And what we should do is maybe just go over... If you have maybe a quick response or whatever, but if you have any questions, you could ask those too. Okay.

They just came in like three minutes ago. I don't think I'll have a quick response, but I can take a look.

So are these by the carpentries or just general?

and then the next two pages should be

Okay. Madam Vice Chair, if I can offer. I think we really we didn't expect Ms. Riewoldt to respond to these tonight because that's really for the budget discussion. It's just to see if there's anything not on the on the list that you want to make sure is in her hands beforehand. So I think she's more, I understand it, a listener than a responder at this stage.

There might be one or two that are really easy to answer for whatever reason. But yes, it's more listening and if you have any questions on them. We're having construction in the bathroom, so it's kind of loud in here, but I don't think it's too loud online, is it? I can't hear any construction. I can't either. Okay. Why don't I go through, so first I'll read the questions and then we'll see if anybody else, counselors have any other questions. And then... as we will you can you know ask your questions of us so general questions and it's What opportunities are available for continuing education professional publications? What procedures govern when vacations occur to ensure coverage?

How can ZAP and land use help you achieve the goals you have listed for FY2027? And anybody who's new in the budget, when they present the budget, they have their goals listed there. Okay. and we'll get the budget way before our meeting. Number four, how are staff or FTEs aligned to challenges and opportunities you list as your goals? Do you have any questions on that Ms. Wewell? Pretty straightforward. Yeah, no questions so far. A bunch of questions then on consultants. And I know planning tends to have a lot of consultants. So number one, where do you intend to seek external help to achieve these goals? What type of help do you think you will need? How do these show up in your budget? Do you think you need to engage a consultant? Which ones? How much?

might we spend on them? Two, what amounts are set aside for consultants and how are they spent? Who must authorize and review the work? Would it be possible to have an accounting of expenditures and current balances in the consultant accounts? for entering contracts with individual consultants. How are they managed? Is oversight left with the planning director? If additional work or unplanned expenditures arise, how is it handled? I know I've had questions in the past about consultants because what's in the budget and what's been spent has been kind of different. I know sometimes there's a little bit of overlap, but it was still not really clear to me. and I think a few other people too. Any questions on those at all? And so I know we just think of,

This part of planning, but part of planning is also transportation. And I know they got consultants over there. And so probably talk about those other different areas too. Planning and development. One. What is the greatest need within planning? What would be the most effective financial investment within the department? Two. Is there a budget or staff capability to focus on intentional periodic engagement with the community through mailings, attendance at village days, farmer's market? then some more on consultants. We used to have, do we still have a community engagement person in planning?

We do. So we I think this past year we sort of reworked that job description from community engagement to more outreach and to be more communications focused. You know, I think What we were experiencing is we just were having a hard time getting the work we do out there and kind of breaking it down in a really easy to understand way. You know, we all went to school for planning. To us, it's like, oh, it's so simple, but it's not to everyone. It's not as clear what we're up to, what we're working on, why it's important. What are the rules that govern the work we do? We really wanted to take a more I think view of that role to be more communications focused. How can we share about the work we do and what we are doing?

And who is in that role right now?

That is Hannah Sternberg. She started last January.

Like two months ago?

No, 2025.

Okay. Okay. Councilor Kalis has his hand raised.

Yeah, so... Ms. Wewell, on consultants, I'm just wondering, and you don't have to answer here, although I'd love you're off the cuff. Like, what's your perspective on consultants? Do you just use them when you don't have expertise in-house? Or do you use them because there's a budget allocated and you want to use it up? What's your perspective on how they've been used in the past?

Yeah, no, thanks for that question. And I think one thing, I guess just about my background and experience in planning is up until this year, I'd been mostly in development review. So the consultants we used there are all developer funded. So it's a little bit different. So now I'm stepping into this role and learning more about what we've done with the consultants. And it, you know, to me, It seems like they're really, I wouldn't say an extra pair of hands, but just when we have some ambitious or really... Maybe a step below ambitious, I would say Village Center. We needed a consultant for that, but then we also used consultants for facade ratio. And I think they

really help us in sort of the images and kind of case studies, kind of doing that analysis that then frees up staff time for other things like communicating with the public. We can't send A member of the public to the consultant, you know, we want to be available for that. So I think it's just, it gets, it allows us to get our work done probably faster than if it were just the planning department, but I think I'm also Learning, what we've used consultants for. I think we used consultants on the plaza. So to me, they're like an extra pair of hands who can also do more analysis and have tools at their disposal that we may not. But I'd like to look into that more and provide that update next time.

I think that's good. I mean, I think that's right, too, because it's either they're going to provide expertise or the ability to get something done faster. And if you're working with the chair and vice chair and they're saying, look, This isn't as much of a priority. It's more complex. You have six months on it. Maybe you don't need a consultant, but I think you're looking at it in the right way. So that's good. Thank you.

and Councilor Farrell has joined us and Thank you. Thank you. What is the total annual expenditures on planning-related consultants, zoning, special permits, peer review, transportation, urban design, and how does it compare to the approved budget? Two, which functions are currently outsourced? Peer review of development projects, zoning ordinance updates, transportation studies, Three, are consultants being used due to specialized expertise or staffing capacity gaps? Some of these questions you've actually answered already. Four, for recurring needs, would it be more cost effective to build in-house capacity?

Five, how are consultant scopes defined and controlled to prevent costs or overruns? Six. Historically, consultant spending has not aligned with budget. What specific changes have been implemented to improve forecasting and oversight? And Councilor Albright, go ahead.

I know that we have used teal and land-wise because we really don't have any architectural expertise. We don't have that kind of architectural, financial analysis at all in the house.

Councilor Dahmubed.

Well, now we have Councilor Dahmubed, but he's not on staff. and you know zoning and planning has a lot to do with analysis of what are the architectural implications what are the cost implications and I I guess I don't know if we can afford those people to be on staff or part-time even so I think I understand why we use consultants in those particular areas, but it sure would be nice to have people like that on staff.

Right. And I think one thing that's important to consider is you know it's not just the salary of staff it's also all the benefits that come with it that I think maybe tips the scales in the ability to use the consultants where the trade-off is and I think I do question whether we would be competitive with consultants to have an architect on staff who wouldn't have some sort of conflict of interest as well.

That's true. But you'll explain all that when you answer these questions. That'd be great.

Any other questions or consultants?

Okay.

The next one is AI and technology. One, where can AI or technology automation reduce staff time in? Examples, permanent intake and review, planned document review, zoning compliance, dimensional checks, staff reporting, report drafting. Two, are we fully utilizing existing systems, permitting software, GIS tools, or are there gaps in training or integration? Three, what specific technology investments would have the highest ROI? For example, upgraded permitting system, GIS integration, digital plan review tools. Four, what are the barriers to implementation? Procurement, IT support, training, data quality. Five, how can technology improve transparency and communication with residents and applicants?

and six, could AI assist with a zoning analysis, FAR setbacks, client checklist or two, identifying consistencies across plans, documents and three, generating draft staff reports on decision memos. Have you started using AI or any other additional tools in the planning department?

So we have not used AI in sort of the more technical things, you know, that we use planners for. I'm very kind of cautious of sort of that direction in terms of sort of Trusting the information AI would give. I don't know if AI would know what the difference between an old law and a new law is. Our zoning is so specialized that I think that would be very... um risky because we're also subject to these state processes you know I'm thinking in special permits and you know I think I'm just very cautious with that where we have tried and continue to Use AI is meeting minutes. So the planning department staffs, the historic boards and commissions, there's about five a month so that

That's cumulatively quite a few meetings that we need to do the agenda and minutes for. So we've tried AI there. It's been a little bit challenging because the software we've been working with doesn't identify who the speaker is. And, you know, as you know, some of these meetings go on for several hours. So there's We're trying with more... kind of meeting minute software and things like that but we're not having too much success and I think we're just trying to figure out what the right meeting is that we can use it.

Have you talked to other towns and cities to see if they're using it and what's working for them?

I think we're trying to use what we have access to. I think through Zoom there's the Otter transcript feature and then there's A note taker feature. So I think we're kind of trying to see what is available to us before maybe exploring other options. But I think it's something to explore. It's also, I think, sometimes people's personal Preference. They're fine listening and doing it. They have minutes down or they prefer the AI.

Okay. Anybody else have any questions on that area?

I can just tell you my experience with AI. I asked it about raised beds. Yeah. And they referred me to a proposed ordinance that we had about 10 years ago where it was allowed and told me, oh yeah, Newton does that. And the other question I asked, I can't remember what it was. But they referred me and I had a conversation with the commissioner about this one. They referred me to an old version of the software and not of the zoning code and not the newer version. So it makes mistakes. and you really have to be careful. I think anything though you need to check it.

Do you want to say what you've done? I don't know. Okay. We have been joined in the room by Councilor Malakie. And we also have been joined online by Councilor Block. And Councilor Dahmubed, do you have a question?

Yes, thank you. I'm happy to be on the record as being a bit of an AI skeptic, but I think the main question that I have around this is whether or not It's good that the planning department is putting some thought into and being critical in how AI is used. I'm wondering if there's a bigger question about an administration-wide strategy to how AI is used or not used or whether this is going to be a department by department decision. You may not have the answer there, Miss Wewell, but if as you're considering this, if that's the conversation that comes up, it would be helpful to know if that's influencing the timeline of implementation and the strategy for implementation.

Yeah, I'm not sure if the administration has any sort of policy, not policy, but direction on that. You know, I think though, like if I could just share, sometimes as staff, we do try to play with it and just see if it could Elbray. It kind of spits out the wrong information. It doesn't account for things like nonconformities. So I think even if we were to, I don't even know if it's possible to use it for You know, a zoning capacity, but I think we might as well do it instead of have to check like a machine or AI.

Okay, anything other questions for planning before we go to the next one? Okay, and... I don't think there's any questions specifically for the CPA area. There was no questions on here specifically. So let's do ISD next. So you can come again to the table, Commissioner. Um, so there's some general questions here and I don't know, do you use any consultants? Okay. Um, but you may want to take a look at a few of those general ones we went through and then The ISD, I'll read them off and if you want to say anything about it and if anybody else has questions.

Number one, is ISD properly staffed to meet demands for inspections, permitting, and enforcement? 2. What are the biggest bottlenecks? Plan review. For example, plan review, inspections, enforcement, customer response times, etc. ? 3. If one additional FTE were added, where would it have the greatest impact? 4. Would adding staff reduce reliance on consultants or overtime? Five, what is the greatest need within ISD? What would be the most effective financial investment within the department? 6. How can ISD keep ZAP appraised of feedback, quote, from the counter? For example, questions from builders and homeowners, interpretation of zoning, etc. ? 7.

Are there any additional processes to put in place to reduce zoning violations rather than a complaint-driven system? Beyond additional inspectors in the field identifying violations, are there additional legal resources that can be used to prevent them from occurring? Is it possible to add a tiered fee schedule for violations? First, second, third, and fraction. Is it possible to add a surcharge for demolition based on the tonnage removed from the site? 9. Capture the questions asked at the ISD counter. Good idea, Dale. Is there a need for additional information to be distributed to the counter? You get off light there.

Any comments? I mean,

One additional full-time employee would be an electrical inspector due to the fossil fuel pre-ordnance going on in the city and the, combined with the new energy codes that mostly Most new, if not all new homes are on electric now anyway. So there's a bit of a strain. We have three full-timers now. with the odd timer that fills in when they're on vacation or out sick. And so we're going to see another electrical inspector.

Okay. Good to know. Anybody? Oh, I see some hands. Councilor Kalis.

Commissioner, I'm sure I've asked this before or somebody has, but how do you keep track of all the special permits? Do you need more systems to be able to do that? Does something come up? When something is time-based where you need to check on it, is there an alarm? Or is it really solely complaint-driven?

So are you talking about just if someone came to the car and wanted to do some work on their home or a developer came in, how would we know there's a special permit on it? Is that what you're asking?

No, the special permits that are already passed and we're supposed to be monitoring to make sure that they're within the law.

After it's been completed, you mean?

Yes.

and Katie could probably confirm this with me, but I believe there's somebody in planning that does that already.

Yeah, I can kind of, I think to explain the link between inspectional services and planning, not only kind of Being the stewards of the zoning ordinance, you know, planning, it takes the special permit through the public process. And then if it's approved, you know, it gets recorded. at that we use the permitting software for you know changing sort of the status of a property to indicate that it has a special permit we upload the decision to the main landing page that we see as staff so that kind of communicates, hey, there's a special permit here. It kind of, you know, then transitions from planning to inspectional services I think with the all of the conditions that get attached to special permits you know those are typically phased

at building permit occupancy, but then for some of the larger projects, we have post-occupancy conditions. So, we've been working we meaning planning have been working on a record type in new gov to flag post-occupancy conditions so that creates a new record it gets Put into staff members inbox in New Gov and that's how we track it. So, for example, I had one. It was around one of the cannabis retailers that had parking monitor attached to it on Boylston Street. So I was responsible for sort of the implementation of that condition that was placed. But we work pretty closely with

Commissioner and his team on, you know, if there's zoning enforcement requested, we'll try to get the zoning code enforcement officer. the you know the decision the correct decision the most up-to-date decision and then work with them on that so I hope that kind of helps, but happy to work with the commissioner on following up with any of those questions.

That's great. That's great. Is there, I mean, because to me, it probably, it sounds, my guess is that in the first year, These projects are within compliance. It's then you get up to year five and maybe ten where they're just like, eh. Maybe not. So it's those years, those out years that I'm more concerned about, actually. And do we have somebody that looks at those or is that or no, because we don't have the resources? And maybe we shouldn't say this publicly, I'm not sure.

I suggest you hold the answer to that question till later.

I'm fine with that.

Okay, are you done?

Yes.

Okay.

Councilor Albright. So I do want to just pursue that a little bit. And that is, you know, because of a recent Thank you. Thank you. I want to know if you can put a process in place to at least try and look at all the old special permits. I don't know if it's once a year, once every two years, once every three years. Get a process in place to... Make sure that we look at all the old special permits periodically and see if they're out of compliance or not. I'm guessing many of them are out of compliance.

So I know the recent, as Councilor Cahill said, the recent ones are probably in good shape, but I think we need to think about a process to make sure we're looking at the old ones. at least once every three years, something like that.

That would be a lot of special permits that we would all have to look at.

I know, but what's the point of having conditions in special permits if we don't look at it?

I'm not saying that, you know, it's an issue, but... That would almost require somebody just to be on full time just going back looking at all the other special permits. and that would be their primary job. It would be, it sounds to me, that would be to go back and check these special permits and make sure they were in compliance.

Well, that's something we should talk about at budget time. How much value is there in these conditions if we don't go back and check on them.

And also trying to find the older special permits. I mean, Thankfully for NewGov, we can, most of all, if not all, current special permits are on the new software. At some point, we would have liked to have the city clerk because they are the keeper of special primary, the keeper of the records. Go through possibly all of the files of special permits and then upload them to the addresses that that have these, you know, there'll be times when we'll go into the property file, we won't even find a special permit in there sometimes, but there will be a special permit on there and it becomes a problem. So I...

So that is a problem and we should address that. Whether it's the clerk's office or your office or whose office, we should figure out how to make that happen.

Because that was the whole point of getting the permitting system so that we could... Well, obviously it would be more... in tune with all of the permits that we have, including special permits. And I think it's done a good job for current, but we need all the older ones to be uploaded

Yeah, I agree. If they're not, they should be. So we should talk about who's going to do it and who's going to pay for it.

Do you have a guesstimate of how many special credits are there? No, I have no idea. Like 20,000? I have no idea. Wait, wait, wait, there's a couple other people too. Councilor Baker.

Thank you. Again, I'm having trouble with my video, but Again, I think these are legitimate questions for the budget, and I hope that the process will involve the clerk of the committee taking some of these oral comments and questions and making sure they're consolidated and reorganizing the information so that it can be provided to both departments in advance of their budget discussion. But beyond that, I just want to mention my memory was in a prior Administration, there was an effort to take old special permits and legacy special permits that were in writing and scan them in and make sure they were available electronically. I'm not sure whatever happened to that initiative, but it's one of those questions that may be worth following up. Again, I think

On the IFE website on new gov, some of the old permits are slowly coming out.

We have the DSAs in our office during the day at downtime. going through all of the property files that we have and they're putting them to digital. So where are we up to Ben? We're on P. We're on P.

Oh, wow. And you're going alphabetically.

And we've got through the files.

Anthony, what other than Lodge? Yeah, I know. And we have also the Lodge files like B.C., The Mall, The Street, all of those places. We're saving all those for last. Once we get through all the roads, obviously Washington Street, Watertown Street, they're two very large streets. They're going to take a while, but I think we had estimated, Kristen had estimated somewhere around two to three to maybe, I think two to three years to complete the streets. Then You've been at ISD where we have the movable rolling files. The idea is to get rid of those, then to consolidate all of the larger permits into a lateral file underneath the ISD counter. and then continue with them and, you know, free up for more space. Ideally we'd love to bring the electrical and plumbing inspectors up and have them in the same office as we are.

Well, the only other thought that I was having was that, you know, I think that this is actually a law review in the sense of looking at the conditions and then highlighting them and then putting them on a timeline. So that then if someone is supposed to annually, and I remember Councilor Danberg talking about payments and that the payments weren't being followed, you know, and that's the kind of thing where they need to be, you know, into some sort of calendar. So that then it's like flagged in some way with the property.

I think planning does that already, Katie.

Yeah, so I'm not sure which payments Councilor Danberg was referring to, but I know Since Attorney Temple and I have worked on standardizing special permit conditions, we actually tie it to a phase of development. So whether it's the building permit or the occupancy permit, that's when we have the most leverage to get the conditions complied with. I think there's a history of special permits that we sort of question Why did they do it this way? You know, maybe the payment was just they shall make this payment, period. And there was no time frame tied to it. So then as staff, that gives that doesn't help us but those are pretty old so I think you know I'm sure the commissioner has seen some pretty quirky special permits too where you're kind of scratching your head and saying Why was this written this way?

And so I think we've done a lot of work the last few years to standardize things, make things more predictable. You know, less sort of copy and paste from an old decision and, you know, getting it right and having it make sense and tied to appropriate phases.

Okay, any other questions from counselors on pre-budget discussion? No, so should we...

Well, it's pre-budget, so it's either when they enter the hold, I would think, and we're going to get to budget conversations in early, well, a little bit longer, I would think, right, because... 27, I think.

So it's an and? I think so.

I think that's appropriate.

Yep. Okay, all those in favor?

Do you need a motion? Motion to end.

Okay. Okay, all those in favor? Bye.

Bye.

Anyone opposed? Abstain? Okay. I think it's an 8-0. It is definitely unanimous. Yep. Was this helpful, Ms. Weewall and Commissioner? Was this helpful? Yeah. Okay, good. Okay, so the second and last item we have for tonight is 55-26, Update on Short-Term Rental Ordinance Compliance and Enforcement. Councilors Baker, Malakie, Getz, Farrell, and Kelley requesting an update on short-term rental ordinance compliance enforcement, including data on registrations, complaints, investigations, and fines issued. Types of violation being found, i.e.

non-owner occupied room limits, limits, annual time limits, other code variations like noise, health and safety, trash. Ability to compare STRs registered with the city versus registered with the state versus listings on public platforms. Ability to obtain listing information from STR. which is short-term or adult companies, adequacy of resources or other obstacles to enforcement.

Okay, it's all you. Well, Last year, at this time, we had a total of nine for the entire year registered short-term rentals.

Just nine registered?

Yeah. For the entire year. This year, we've currently registered 24. We have seven in process of being registered. Sometimes that takes a bit of a time because we typically find them on the Short-term rental sites, Airbnb, Vero. And so we can find them relatively easily. I can tell you they're probably starting to maybe have an uptick because the World Cup is coming in the summer. But we've been keeping an eye on it, and Andy Manfulis has been doing a great job at it. So far we have $27,000 in violation letter fines. 32 civil tickets have been issued since November of last year. How many? 32.

That total to $21,300, roughly half of that's been paid. We actually, for the short-term rentals, we actually have them pay the fine before registering. They can't. registered without paying the fine. So some we've caught that said they won't do it anymore because they don't want to pay the fine. And other than that, some they just accommodate and just pay fine. We also have four of the civil fines that are up for appeal in district court because they have the right to appeal. I don't know how they're going to do. Sometimes the court is very lenient, as we've seen with leaf blower violations. I'm assuming it's going to probably be the same thing.

maybe say hey don't do it again and you know but we usually find the people are repeat offenders and we'll tell them to take their ad down They take it down. A couple days later, it's back up. And then we start issuing tickets. Once we see it's up again, and then just to try and make them understand, you can't do it. The mainly, the best way we've been able to find them is that they don't have the registration, the Newton registration in the app. And mainly that's how we find most of them. Sending out letters. That was one of the ways we were going to try and find most of these isn't working as well as we thought it would. We've also found people who have returned

The letter saying that they are no longer doing it, but then we buy them online and they are doing it. So we're trying to, we'll probably still send the letters out, but maybe not in larger sums, maybe smaller, maybe 10 at a time. to through the state's list to try and see if we can get a response back. Because basically we give them a return response that they're supposed to give back to us saying that they either are operating or they're not operating or don't intend to operate. So when we get that back, at least we have an idea, if we find them online, later on we can say hey well you said that you were operating but because we've had a few of those too and sometimes the properties get sold and it's not even the right person and they're not doing any short-term rentals whatsoever um What else?

So yeah, basically we'll look online and we'll see if, because even on the short-term rental sites, they also rent for long-term, greater than 30 days. And if we see the ad up there with the SDR registration, that's great. If we don't see an SDR registration and that ad says that they're renting for more than 30 days, they're compliant. Other things. God bless you. Thank you. What I would like to maybe make is a couple of alterations to the ordinance 20-161D. There's the ordinance that says three or more violation enforcement of the provision, you get a six-month suspension, okay? These suspensions are really, they really don't work, okay?

They pause all enforcement, drag things out, and in the meantime, they'll still rent in the meantime. So it's just very difficult to get a handle on.

So what should it be changed to?

Remove it altogether.

Here are more violations.

I mean, if you count just the ticket violations that they get as violations, they'd all be suspended from the beginning.

Yeah. What amount is What's the amount they're being ticketed?

$300 each violation.

And how much is it to register?

I believe it's $100.

So how many that are listed in the state's registry do you think, how many do we have to go? Is it like 30?

Roughly 200.

Okay, so we have a ways to go still.

Yeah, it's going to be a process.

So there's 175 in the state registry?

I believe between 175 and 200. I know we probably got rid of 25 through, do you remember that?

We sent out 77 letters. Yeah. And I don't know the number of what we got back that was actually registered.

Right. Okay. What platforms are you looking at?

BRBO, Airbnb, mainly the ones that we've been looking at.

I don't know if other people might know of other platforms

There are many of them, but they all feed off of each other. These are mainly the biggest two that you're going to get the most out of enforcement. A lot of times people will own a true family and they'll wreck The upstairs, which you cannot do. And we explained that you can't do that. If you want to rent that out for 30 days, that's greater than 30 days or more. That's fine. But the short-term rental has to be the principal unit that you rent out. So, and sometimes they don't understand, but you make them understand.

So if it's not allowed to rent out an upstairs unit if you're living downstairs?

Well, up to three months. Well, no. No, you can't at all. You have to live there. If you're living on the first floor, you can't be living above.

So if you're living on the first floor, you can only rent above floors for longer than three months.

No, longer than 30 days.

Longer than 30 days. You cannot do anything short term.

No. 30 days or more, actually, is the way the time is.

But you can rent out your own apartment, the whole apartment. Let's say you go to the Cape for the summer.

Well, the whole apartment as long as it's only three bedrooms and up to nine people.

Yeah, and up to three months where you can rent out your whole apartment.

A lot of these Airbnbs, people are there and they rent out a room. The house doesn't have to be vacant in order to rent it.

Do you register for that scenario?

that is just registering for a short-term rental.

Yeah.

If it's going to be for, you know, weekend or week or whatever, if someone's in town for maybe a wedding or something and they need a place to stay, you know, That would work out. It wouldn't be a problem as long as you were registered.

Councillor Baker, you had your hand up more than a minute ago.

Thanks. This is a longer range question, but I appreciate the commissioner's effort and to notify the people who registered for the state. This is a question I have, and maybe we can get an answer for an update in the future of whether in fact we can do anything with the state to require parallel registration with the local governments in which have a short-term rental ordinance because it seems to me that there is a value here from the state perspective to have people comply at both levels. And so this may be an opportunity to look ahead with our state delegation to figure out if there's some either regulatory or even legislative response that would enable the state to say, when you register for us, you also must register with the local government if there is one. Because the whole point of here is to maintain our long term rental stock, not have it diverted into short term rentals.

and we've worked very hard in that direction and I think that if applaud the commissioner's effort and we want to keep him active in that effort and but give him all the tools we can. Thanks.

Getz.

Yeah, the only other thought that I'm having is it seems like there's quite a bit of time investment, you know, within ISD to resolve this. Do you think that you're actually being effective, you know, in terms of like, it sort of seems like you're halfway through.

you know if not yeah well I didn't mean to no no no I'm just sort of saying I it's going to take time just like any enforcement takes time I mean, if there are 175 out there, you've got to work through it. There is investigation work that you have to do. You have to go online. You have to find out, okay, is it Is this in Newton? Trying to find it is a little bit of a work, but we've been getting much better at it. Andy, he really is. He's a wizard. You can find most of any place. But, you know, it's... It takes time. And then you send out the violation tickets. Sometimes you don't get a response. But usually these tickets are what have been getting the biggest response. That's what's bringing them in. Not your regular zoning violation that we used to send out. It doesn't, that really doesn't produce much of a response from the violators. But you send them a $1,200, I mean, a $1,200 ticket? They're coming to the car.

It's worth blunders, I'll tell you that much. And Deb Fenimore here has put this whole system together that basically you're just clicking on these tickets and you're sending them out as quick as we can. It's been fantastic. New government has been phenomenal with this.

So it's $300 a day per mileage.

So if you're not registered, and you don't have your number up on the registration, that's $600 right there, okay? And if you're renting more than in Indiana, if it shows you're renting more than nine people, That's another violation. If you're renting more than three bedrooms, that's another violation. So it adds up quick.

I was wondering if it was just 300, how it came to that amount. I'm kind of curious, though, do Most of the people you contact, are they doing this intentionally? And it's only $100 to register. Or do they not? Do they genuinely not know?

Some don't realize you have to register. Some we find out they've been doing it for 9, 10 years. I can tell you also we get very little complaints, if none, from residents.

Good, so it's been working then.

Well, I'm just saying, even with the ones that are out there now, We really don't get many complaints at all that I can see. from most of this is being filed by, by, you know, our, uh, uh, pretty much.

I mean, before we had, we were getting a lot of complaints.

We were getting some complaints, but you know, like everything else, there are some that you don't get complacent. Tell me more. Like I said, some of these were going on for 9, 10, 12 years. And then they don't realize. Give them that day that they don't realize. What would help is probably putting something in the mayor's newsletter about this. saying about, you know, hey, short-term rentals, let's not forget you have to be registered in the City of Newton, advertised with the City of Newton registration number in order to be compliant with the ordinance.

Yeah, because right now Airbnb is putting out announcements looking for places.

They're actually giving solaces for World Cup people. I thought $400 or $500. Yeah. So we've seen those on picture.

Yeah, so it would be a good idea.

Which is an incentive for people who don't normally do it to actually rent it out. Hey, we can make a few bucks here. But again, if we find them, we give them. Time to respond. Okay, we'll send them a letter and give them up to about 10, 12 days. I'm sorry, from which letter?

We sent multiple letters. Yeah, I know. Our first letter is asking them if they do it. If they do it. The second letter is you're in violation. You have seven days to correct it or contact us. And then the first ticket goes out after that.

Yeah.

So we give them a chance to respond and for them to get the mail, to get the actual notice.

Any other questions? Yes, Councilor Malakie.

So you said there were a couple of things that you would suggest changing, one of them being the getting rid of that suspension thing. So the alternative And that actually gets the money.

Well, I think you're going to get a quicker turnaround of someone to be compliant, again, because the Okay. Just wait around.

Or I will be caught again. But if they're suspended, quote unquote suspended, and you catch them still renting, Is that an extra fine?

And he said, you know, violating the ordinance. So it's very difficult to keep track of. Tracking these things is just... It's difficult.

Is this where AI would help?

No, I don't know if AI would help with this, okay? But, you know, it's just a, it's an ageless process to keep track of all these. And he keeps a whole spreadsheet. on the ones that he's looked at, and he has it all color-coded. He's very argumentative, I'll put it that way, to the point of frustration. But he doesn't want to put that on.

And if you reach the fines, so they either pay the fine, they appeal it, or they're ones who just don't respond and wait for them

They don't respond at all and at that point we can always take them to court.

Okay, and has that had to happen much?

Not yet. Well, like I said, there are, I think, two going for appeal. Yeah, first of all, find a schedule to appeal in court.

Now, those tickets went out over a month or two ago. Yeah. and we don't have a court hearing until May. So in that timeframe, we can't do anything because they're appealing. So all our work has to stop. We can't pick it up again until May 6th.

Can you issue new tickets if they keep advertising while they're appealing? A whole ticket.

Well, the whole thing still can't stop everything.

So their best way to keep Keep running an illegal Airbnb without getting fined is two appeals. Is there a way to fix that? That's correct, not us.

I think his recommendation to remove that section makes a huge amount of sense. Before he brought it up, I was looking at it thinking this makes no sense. Because if you appeal it and everything, enforcement falls.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Councilor Baker.

So I'm going to move hold on this item because I think that some of the things can be Modified, as we've talked about. But also, I do think it's worth having a conversation with the law department. because I don't think we want to necessarily deny someone the right to appeal but if there's someone who's operating illegally In the meantime, I'm troubled that the commissioner's office has no recourse. So I'd like to have an opportunity to explore that with the law department and bring the item back later at another time with the commissioner and our law department involved.

I do want to say one more thing as far as we require them to give us an affidavit every year that has to be signed by them and notarized. I would probably rather get rid of the notarization part of it out and just have them give us a signed letter. It always results in some sort of issue. We didn't know it had to be notarized. Why do we have to get it notarized? Would my signature be fine? And you know what? I'm fine with your signature. If you're going to give me that affidavit saying you're operating, whether it's signed by you or notarized by a notary, I don't care, okay? as long as I get.

Okay. Councilor Roche.

I just would be sure that the notarizing doesn't have some sort of different legal effect. So I'm with you because it seems like an unnecessary obstacle to have them comply and we want them to comply. So I'm totally with you. I would just check with legal... who may say, yeah, that would be nice, except if they notarize it, it has this legal consequence. We can do that. Yeah, that's all. Yep.

Okay. What's the relevance? Just real quick. You know, when it comes to the alterations, or at least you're thinking on the alterations to the ordinance, are you guys going to bring that forward when you're ready? Or is that going to come to us? Yeah, we've been talking a lot about it.

Yeah, we're just talking about it.

If we are going to make the changes, I just want to know that they're coming. When you guys are on it, you're going to have that conversation with law, whether it's right now or in the future. In the future, yeah. Okay. Okay.

I think the committee can create a parens too if we need an amendment. This is a discussion and reporting item, I think, but I can't remember the full text.

Yeah, I don't think it included changes to the ordinance, but... If we want to talk about changes, somebody's got to start that process is really all I'm asking.

Yeah, I mean, if you could mark it up, what you want, like that one section out and whatever, and then bring it by law or... Mr. Lee, and then, you know, bring it to planning and we can make those changes. Because we want to make your job as easy as possible. You sure? Okay, anything else?

I don't have anything else to add. Okay, any other questions?

So I think Councilor Baker said he recommended to hold. Yep. Okay, all those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Any nays?

Abstain? Nope. 8-0. Okay, so I think... That's it. Oh, great. We'll be adjourning the meeting at 8.01 p.m. Great. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair and all members and the clerk.

Thank you.

I don't know where he is, but it looks a lot nicer than it is here.

I'm in California visiting family for Persian New Year.

Next time you're in California and you join my Zoom remotely, just turn your camera off.

A snow background or something. Don't worry, I'll be home tomorrow to enjoy the cold.

That's acceptable as well. How is airport security?

So far, so good. Knock on wood.

John went through yesterday through Orlando and he said it took him seven minutes. That's it.

I watch ABC News and people waiting like five hours.

Well, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That's some dark, dark stuff.

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!