Land Use Committee

Welcome, everyone. I will call this meeting to order. It is Thursday, October 1st. This is a joint meeting with the Planning Board for the purpose of public hearing on several zoning amendments. This Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this committee meeting is being conducted via remote participation and we will post This is roll call, Councilor Davis.

Here.

Councilor Clingan?

Present.

Councilors Sait? Here. Councillor McLaughlin? Here! Councilor Ewen-Campen?

Here We appear to have a Ninja Turtle in attendance too. Hello, William. So for members of the public, tonight's agenda is all public hearings. There is not going to be deliberation. There will be no votes tonight. Tonight is for us to hear presentations on a series of proposed amendments from the administration There may be some brief questions just to clarify things, but tonight is not for deliberating and voting. Tonight is for us to hear from the public. So that is the purpose of tonight's meeting. And we're joined tonight by the planning board. So I'm going to move us into recess so the planning We're in recess.

Thank you, Chair Ewen Campen. My name is Amelia Aboff. I am the Vice Chair of the Planning Board, chairing this evening's meeting. With me are our Clerk Jahan Habib and members Lynn Richards, Michael McNeely, Luc Schuster, and Coralie Cooper. We are reconvening here and have quorum. John, can you please read the notices into the record?

Absolutely, Madam Chair Requesting ordainment of an amendment to sections 3.2.17, 4.1.15, 4 .2.15 and 4.3.15 4.15, 5.1.16, 6.13 6.2.14, 6.3.13, 6 .4.16, 5.13 of the Somerville zoning ordinance to correct parking maximums file number 26-1258 Requesting ordainment of an amendment to sections 2.4.4, 3.1.7, 3 . 1.8 and 3.9 3.1.10, 3.11.11, 3 .2.7, 3 2.8, 3 0.9

3.2.10, 3.211, 4.171, 4.3.7, 4.4.7 of the Somerville zoning ordinances to remove ground story elevation requirements file number 26-1259 Requesting ordainment of amendment to sections 3.1.3, 3.16, 3 1.8 and 3.19 3.1.11, 3.12, 3 1.13, 3 0.16, 3 2.6 of the Somerville Zoning Ordinance to align with the state law regarding protected accessory dwelling units. File number 26-1336.

Requesting Ordainment of an Amendment to Sections 2.4.5, 3.1.17, 3 .2.16, 4.1 .8, 4 .1.9, 4 4.2.8, 4.9, 4 2.14, 4 3.8 ,4.3.9 4.8, 4.4.9, 4 .4.15, 5.1 1.7, 5 .1.8 ,5.1.9 and 5.16 6.1.12, 6.2.7, 6-point 2.8, 6 point 2.14 6.3.12, 6.4.9, 6-point 4.15, 6 point 5.7

7.2.8 of the Somerville Zoning Ordinance to clarify requirements for principal entrances file number 26-1337 requesting ordainment of amendments to sections 2.1.1, 2.114 4.5, 3.1.16, 3 .2.8 ,3.2.9, 3 2.10, 3 0.11, 3 3, 4.1.7, 4 point 1.8, 4point 1.9, 4 Point 1.10, 4-point 1-point 13, four-point 2-point 3, 4.2.7, 4 . 2.8, 4 point two point nine four point two-point ten 4.2.13, 4.3.3, 4 .

3.7, 4 point three point eight four point three nine four point ten 4.3.13, 4.4.3, 4 .4.7, 4 4.8, 4 4.13, 5.1.3, 5 .1.7, 5 1.8, 5 0.9, 5 1.11, 5.1.14, 6.1 .3, 6 point 1.7 6.1.8, 6.11, 6 2.3, 62.7,6.2.8 6.2.9, 6.212, 6 .3.3, 6 3.8, 6 4.3

6.4.9,6.4 11, 6.5.3, 6 . 5.7, 6 point five point eight six points five point eleven seven point two point seven 7.2.10, 7.4.3, 7 .4.6, 7 4.7, 7 0.8, 7 8.1.1, 8. 1.2, 8 .1.4, 8 point one point five eight point one six eight point two point two eight point to point or 8.2.5, 8.4.16, 8 . 4.17, 8 point four point nineteen 9.1.7, 12.1 point one, 12 point 1.2, 12point 1.4

12.1.5, 12.16, 12 point 1.7, 4.3.5 12.3.6, 12.7 of the Somerville zoning ordinance to update terminology for affordable dwelling units and commercial spaces file number 261338 thank you madam chair

I think you got a round of applause for that. Well done. Thank you. And with that, we will turn it back over to your meeting, Jerry Ewen-Campen.

Wow. Who says zoning is dry and technical? Can we please call the roll?

This is a roll call to reestablish quorum, Councilor Davis.

Here.

Councilor Clingan.

Present.

Councilors Sait. Here. Councilor McLaughlin? Here. Councillor Ewen-Campen? Here With all members present, we have quorum

All right, so colleagues. My intention tonight and for members of the public as well we're gonna go through each of these items. The director of planning has an overall introduction to kind of explain Why there are five amendments before us and others that might be coming down the pike. That'll be brief, and then we're going to go through these in order for each one. There will be an introduction to what the proposal actually is We'll have an opportunity if there are brief questions from members, and then we're going to open up each public hearing in order. And I just said in order but actually I think Given that I believe a large number of the people who are here tonight are interested in commenting on the ADUs, accessory dwelling units. That's 1.4 on the agenda. So I'd recommend that we take that item up first. That's fine with the planning staff as well.

Unless there is an objection to that then, I will hand it over to Director Bartman for an introduction to all of these amendments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee and the planning board. We're happy to be here tonight. Items kind of coalescing on why there's a number of zoning amendments in front of you tonight and there's actually a schedule of intended submittals of further zoning limits that we have for the entire fall. and we wanted to explain how we got here where these are all coming from that's because we launched our five-year zoning project if you remember last fall with the dormer amendment and then we carried that forward over the course of this year, primarily doing research in the spring which I'll cover in a moment. There's also this fiscal year budget goal of permit streamlining which is having a large effect both on how we regulate but also how we process permits internally and then also the state has made a number of significant changes to MGL 40a and has proposed additional ones

in the forthcoming economic development bond bill that we would like to share with everybody. So I'll go over these three items real quick. The first one is the five-year zoning review. You can do the next slide. So this is an internal project. Like I said, we launched this actually with the dormer amendment work that we did last fall but this really kicked off this year after we hired our additional staff So this project looked at a number of issues, prior amendment and codification errors, dimensional standards in the ordinance that might have had unintended consequences. Confusing word definitions, the permitted use table, organization and text clarity modification to nonconformities. And then of course the state law changes I mentioned along with some court decisions that have happened since we adopted our ordinance in 2019 So the five-year zoning review project is essentially a look back at how things have gone to review

What has happened since original adoption and then make any proposed changes based on the outcomes. And a number of the items that you have in front of you tonight are a product of the five-year zoning review. The next item is actually our permit streamlining fiscal year 27 budget priority, which was announced by the mayor this year in July. or leading up to July, actually in June. So first Somerville is participating in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative The focus of that project is permitting in Somerville. We have a senior leadership team of the chief of staff, the Chief Operating Officer Kim Wells along with some planners and engagement folks from the communications department and strategy and development. That team will be focusing on big picture items, the culture around permitting and how our processes all work

while the planning division has been focusing on chipping at the edges we've developed kind of this communication strategy for our full package of amendment work that will starting tonight and then going through the fall and into the winter Our goal is to create clearer tools, faster reviews and smarter rules. These are targeting applicants, staff and stakeholders including the public that participates and all of the boards. This could be related to how we process permits internally, which might be about the application forms or the directions that we provide to applicants. Giving them easy-to-use checklists coordinating city departments for review timelines,

So all of that is primarily internal process work, but some things might need to have code changes also to handle things like revisions to already issued permits or dimensional standards that could be changed. requiring permits for things that need to have permits and not for things the don't, and then removing any outdated or unnecessary provisions from the code. and then the third one is actually was happening in the background while we were doing our five-year zoning review and working on the budget The state was actually making very significant changes to MGL 40A. So my last slide is covering what those changes are. There's really two. One is that with the state budget bill, it came with an outside section that revised the standards in MGL 40A, which is the Zoning Act for variances. It replaced the former three-part substantial hardship criteria with a new practical difficulty standard.

The old criteria allowed a ZBA to grant a variance if the land had a unique defect that was related to soil conditions, shape or topography of the lot. The new criteria requires different than allows, requires a ZBA to grant a variance upon finding that strict enforcement would result in a practical difficulty. We are required as part of that practical difficulty test to weigh competing interests. Those are benefits to the applicant and the public interest against detriments to the neighborhood. It is not a two-step process either, determining practical difficulty and then a balancing test. The balancing test itself is the method for how this EBA determines if a practical difficulty exists and whether that difficulty is legally sufficient for granting a variance.

Another big, big item is that 40 used to allow municipalities to prohibit use variances When 48 was originally created, the legislature at the time found use variances to be antithetical to the entire purpose of zoning. But these changes... require all towns and cities across Massachusetts to offer a residential use variance. This will directly have an impact on all of our commercial zoning If an applicant has a viable project for residential, they are allowed to petition The zoning board to present a practical difficulty that the commercial zoning might inhibit their ability to deliver residential use. It has a very different impact for places like us that have very strong commercial development goals in our comprehensive plan than it does for other communities, which we believe are the primary target of this legislation.

However, it does impact us. Finally, it also limits the scope of permit conditions that could be applied to a variance. In addition to that there is two versions of an economic development bond bill that have been passed by both the House and the Senate one That is currently in conference committee. The criteria or legislation that is very similar within each bill is significant changes that are going to be made to site plan review. We call that site plan approval here in Somerville. But for the first time, site plan review would be codified in state law. That is currently a creature of municipalities that has been defended by the Supreme Judicial Court but they are proposing language that will codify that for all of us across the commonwealth it comes, that legislation comes with a 90-day total timeline for all decisions down from 155

A requirement for objective performance standards and review criteria to be codified in the zoning ordinance itself. If we are going to attach conditions to permits, there must be a zoning standard and criteria for attaching such a condition. If it's not codified in the ordinance, then we cannot add a condition related to that item. So that means our ordinance will have to be more robust related to the things we might add conditions for in permits There is an absolute prohibition on regulation of aesthetic appearance of structures, which may put our design review and design guidelines in the ordinance at risk. Simple majority vote wins for issuing a site plan review. Denial is only allowed for noncompliance or failure to submit fees, or required application information. and again the legislation limits the scope of permit conditions.

Putting all three of these things together is where all of these zoning amendments come from I realize that this last item is significant changes We are working through the changes made in the state budget bill right now and have five current applications in front of ZBA where we will be conducting that practical difficulty test for the first time. and we are awaiting the Economic Development Bond Bill Conference Committee to conclude and put out legislation that we do anticipate to be signed by the governor. So we do anticipate all of these standards to be put in place in one form or another and for us to have to respond in kind. So that's a quick overview of these three pieces that are kind of all lining up and why there's going to be kind of a season of zoning amendments coming up. and likely to carry into next year.

Our five-year zoning project, the permit streamlining project of the fiscal year budget and the state making significant changes to state law for how zoning works in the Commonwealth.

and with that I can turn it over to all of you for the actual agenda items. Thank you for your time. So with that, I'd ask that we please take up item 1.4 on the agenda requesting ordainment of an amendment to sections 3.1.3 and others of the Somerville Zoning Ordinance to align with state law regarding protected accessory dwelling units. So again, we're going to hear a brief presentation from city staff. If there are clarifying questions from members of the Councilor Planning Board and will try to keep those brief please. And then we'll open it up for public comment. So with that, I think we have senior planner Courtney Sina.

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, quick introduction. My name is Courtney Sina. I'm a new senior planner at the City of Somerville. I have been serving Somervill since May and I'm excited to be working with you all. It's good to meet you virtually. So the first amendment we'll look at is the protected use accessory dwelling unit compliance amendment today. We'll go to the next slide. So we'll start by reviewing State Law 760-CMR 71. That's the state law related to protected use accessory dwelling units. How this law applies to Somerville. Somervill must allow a protected use accessory dwelling unit to be developed and used on any zoning district that also allows a single family residential dwelling.

And in Somerville, that applies to the neighborhood residence district and the urban residence district because both of these districts allow a cottage which is a single family residential dwelling type. And so the standards for this protected use accessory dwelling unit cannot be more restrictive than the standards are for the principal building also on that lot. That applies to dimensional standards, that applies to design standards. However municipalities may regulate the size of that protected use accessory dwelling unit. There's a few other features of this state law related to protected use accessory dwelling units and that could be either um that's that these may be allowed to be either internal or external we cannot limit that There also can be no requirements for occupants of the accessory dwelling unit, including income or affordability requirements. So it's just a quick review of

The state law that we're working to align with, with some of the amendments we're laying out in this proposal. Next slide please We did a bit of research in support of this amendment. Some of that included internal workshops with some of our expert staff. We also did an analysis of all the backyard cottages and accessory dwelling units that have been built in Somerville From February 2022 until July of 2026, that's when we have the data for. So this map over here on the right is showing at the dots are showing all the backyard cottages or accessory dwelling units that were built in that time or at least had building permits in that As you can see, it's spread out across Somerville. We also did interviews with some industry experts and focus groups with architects and developers who are experienced in building backyard cottages. Next please.

Through all this research, we found that there is a typical type of backyard cottage that we've seen in that timeframe built in Somerville. And the dimensions of that kind of typical backyard cottage are a 24 foot by 24 foot Structure. That means that the floor plate is 576 square feet. What we see is that there's usually a first floor of that floor plate and then there's a second floor, a half story of the same floor plate and then there is a basement as well that kind of protrudes a slight bit above the ground elevation. We also usually see that the typical backyard cottage is about two bedrooms. We also see a height of that one and a half stories plus that protruding basement when you combine together the basement and the uh Extra height allowance for a gabled roof you end up with something uh

up to 30 feet tall and then the roof is usually a cross gable dormer which covers the whole depth of the structure in order to take advantage of that full height. Next slide please As for the takeaways we got from our interviews and focus groups, We learned that backyard cottages are of their current size are in high demand in Somerville. They're one of the types of residential development that continues to happen in this kind of economic time of not a lot of development happening. We learned that there are frequent inquiries from homeowners and prospective buyers about building backyard cottages They're popular because they allow multi-generational living. They allow new families or working couples to get an option to live in that's a standalone unit in the city that's more affordable than other options

We also heard that two or three bedroom backyard cottages are particularly marketable because they appeal to families or shared living arrangements. We heard that dimensional flexibility is often more valuable than actually increasing a maximum square footage. It's especially important for modular units or for lots that are a little bit more irregular to have some dimensional flexibility in order to make the projects feasible. It was impressed upon us that construction costs don't decrease proportionally with some of the smaller buildings, so there is some kind of threshold of a size that at some point it's too small to be feasible but the backyard cottages currently are above that threshold. Adaptive reuse projects are too challenging at the moment according to some designers. They would like to more easily convert existing garages and accessory structures into accessory dwelling units

And we also heard that ambiguity in the zoning ordinance creates legal uncertainty and ambiguity is a major deterrent for development. Next slide, please. As for our approach, the issue that we're seeing and attempting to solve with our proposed amendment here. Backyard cottages have dimensional standards that are largely more restrictive than the standards given to principal buildings When we go back to the review of the state law that we talked about before, that creates a bit of a conflict between the Somerville zoning ordinance and the State Protected Use Accessory Dwelling Unit protections. There's some Gray area and uncertainty about how those two items interact. And so some of the goals for this proposed amendment was to clearly align the Somerville zoning ordinance with the requirements of The state law, another goal was to maintain the feasibility of desirable backyard cottage and accessory dwelling unit development.

Another goal was provide ISD with some clear consistent and defensible standards as well as support broader efforts to streamline and clarify permitting So our proposed approach is to align the backyard cottage dimensional standards with those applicable standards for principal buildings to be consistent with the state requirements for protected use accessory dwelling units. And in terms of how to maintain size and purpose of the backyard cottage, our proposal is to establish a maximum gross floor area to maintain kind of that scale of backyard cottages while avoiding the dimensional standards that could conflict with the state law. There are a few upcoming amendments that are related to this amendment, so I thought I would mention those really quickly. One of those we'll look at tonight and it has to do with the terminology The terminology amendment renames affordable dwelling unit to prevent confusion with accessory dwelling units since they both have the same acronym, ADU. Another one is accessory structures.

That's an amendment that we have not submitted yet and we plan for it to come down the pipeline soon Those would clarify minimum standards for all accessory structures, including standards that could be co-opted by the protected use ADU under the state law. So it's just the last item to kind of round out the approach here. Next slide please. So now we'll look at the proposed red lines. A summary here, all the affected sections are within either the neighborhood residents Section or the Urban Residence section. Almost all of the amendments are in 3.1.12 Backyard Cottage, but we'll look at them here closely. Next slide The first amendment I'll look is the amendments which clarify Adaptive reuse of existing structures into accessory dwelling units. I'll start by saying the state

Law CMR 71 clearly allows adaptive reuse of existing structures including non-conforming structures into accessory dwelling units, the protected use accessory dwelling unit specifically. This is something we've added language in and both 3.1.3 which is the purpose section of the neighborhood residence district, we've also added it to 3.16 which is in the uses The language works to clarify that adaptive reuse of existing structures into accessoring dwelling units is allowed as long as there's not an increase in nonconformity and we also require that fenestration standards are met. So the red lines show in 3.1.3, we've added letter F. It says... to permit the adaptive reuse of existing accessory structures including non-conforming structures or accessory dwelling units. And then under 3.1.16 item 2 was added and that reads

I have a pop-up on my screen and I can't quite see it. It reads, an existing accessory structure such as a garage or outbuilding may be adapted for use as an accessory dwelling unit provided that A. The conversion does not increase the structure's existing nonconformity. B, the conversion does create a new non-conformality C, the minimum front facing fenestration requirements are met and the third item here is any modification that results in greater conformity to this ordinance is permitted. Next slide please The next amendments are to the building type sections for both the neighborhood residence district and for the urban residence district, just to clarify how internal and external accessory dwelling units are treated under Somerville's Building Type Scheme. So the amendment clarifies that Backyard Cottage is an accessory dwelling unit.

It also clearly limits what can be built on a single lot to only one principal building and one accessory dwelling It also clarifies treatment of external and internal accessory dwelling units. This is in alignment with the state law which only requires one protected use accessory dwelling unit per lot So the red line now reads, or the building types now read under A. One principal building and one accessory dwelling unit are permitted on each lot. This also affects C which describes Accessory Dwelling Units. It says the following building types for external accessory dwelling units are permitted by right in the neighborhood residence district Backyard Cottage and then D an internal accessory dwelling unit located within or as an attached part of a principal structure is permitted by right in the neighborhood residence district provided

It I complies with all applicable requirements of 760 CMR 71 and 2 does not create a new nonconformity or increase the extent of an existing nonconormity. Similar amendments are in 3.2.6. as is relevant to that district. Next slide please. Next, we look to remove the orientation restrictions within 3.1.8 detached house. The building type semi-detached house, the duplexed type and then the detached triple decker type These orientation restrictions require how the internal structure of units can be organized. The state law requires that internal accessory dwelling units are allowed within structures in unique ways other than what's shown here,

The orientation requirements kind of overly restrict how units can show up inside of a principal building and the public realm is not impacted by those structures and so we have removed those. I have highlighted 3.1.10 duplex here because i think at some point in the pdf shuffle somehow 3. 1.10 got left out So we'll need to add in a redlined version that looks the same as all the other building types. I just wanted to call out here that one is missing from your redline packet. Next, please. Thank you. The next part of this is to simplify the description of a backyard cottage overall. This aligns language that we described earlier with 3.1.6, the building types It also removes some example language in here. So the new description would read, a small floor plate detached building type providing space for one accessory dwelling unit on the same lot as a principal building type

The following images are examples of the backyard cottage building type and are intended only for illustrative purposes. The example language here that we have crossed out has created some gray area in interpretation. And so removing that example language of a home occupation, a playhouse for children or vehicular parking It doesn't change what's allowed in the structure from a use perspective. It just removes that gray area that's been causing some confusion. Next slide, please. Next, these are the standards, dimensional standards for backyard cottages. So the amendment proposes relaxing these backyard cottage dimensional standards to align with the standards of a principal building in order to align

protected use accessory dwelling units and so what that looks like is for example width and depth are both crossed out and instead replaced with the terminology per principal building We've also added under item C in main massing a total gross floor area max. The number there is 1,750 feet so that works to limit the size of the structure by Gross Floor Area Max. Next slide, please. So this is a change in how we regulate the size of the backyard cottage. We used to regulate it by width and depth and other dimensional standards, and now we're looking to do that by gross floor area. That aligns with how the state law has set up The system for organizing accessory dwelling units. So under the state's protected use accessory dwelling unit law,

Municipalities may impose regulations on the protected use accessory dwelling unit, but dimensional and design standards may not be more restrictive than the applicable standards for either the principal dwelling A single family residential dwelling or an accessory structure whichever is more permissive In Somerville, the most permissive standard is usually that principal building. There are a few amendments or again we have that amendment coming up related to accessory structures to kind of round out those straggler moments But here we've aligned the dimensional standards for the backyard cottage with those of the principal buildings. While the state PU-ADU law relaxes those dimensional and design standards, it also does allow municipalities to regulate the overall size of the PADU. The law offers a 900 square foot size maximum for the protected use ADU

Excluding non-livable areas such as garages, stairs, enclosed porches, crawl spaces and attics But it does further allow municipalities to set a more permissive limit And so the way that this number 1,750 square feet has arrived it's representative of the typical backyard cottage that we described earlier in this presentation and so if you recall that was a 24 by 24 Structure, which is 576 square feet with three stories including the basement a main story of the first floor story and then the second floor. And so that number is simply representative of those structures. Next slide, please Oh, sorry. I forgot to also share some of the other impacts that we're expecting from this change and how we regulate the size of a backyard cottage is we are expecting that there will be a little bit more design flexibility in how backyard cottages

how they show up and we're also expecting some barriers to be removed for backyard cottages in like unique lots but these per principal building language does ensure that units cannot be larger than the limits for a principal building next slide please Thank you. Similarly, we'll be regulating height by gross floor area instead of by stories and half-stories so the current system is to use stories and How tall a backyard cottage can be and under this system developers are incentivized to maximize height in order to maximize the usable square footage. by regulating the height with the gross floor area there's no real added benefit to using that square footage as either a protruding basement or as a second story with an extra tall gabled roof The backyard cottage height is limited to the same number of stories that the principal building has. And the roof type can also now match that roof type of the principal buildings, so any backyard cottage would still be able to build either a flat or gable roof

or I would have the option to match whatever the principal building has. Next slide please. Thank you. In terms of other dimensional standards that are changing as part of this proposed amendment the next has to do with setbacks. The primary front setback is changed from 60 feet to 10 feet. 10 feet is what we see in all the other building types and so that matches with the more permissive option for the state law. We expect that changing that setback means we'll see less issues of lots that are uniquely shaped or lots with multiple frontages and then we've also struck out the building separation requirement this has been one of those requirements that have caused some ambiguity in the code and it's already

It is one of the issues that's already covered by building code in terms of providing space for fire safety. Next slide, please Thank you. And finally, the last part of this proposed amendment is to relax building components for backyard cottages. Again, the approach here is to align the standards or backyard cottagers with those of the principal structure and this affects the engaged porch, it affects the bay, the gable dormer, the shed dormer and the projecting gable. Again, the state law 760 CMR 71 describes the design standards that apply to the principal building to the accessory dwelling unit. This applies to all of the standards we've spoken about The structure must still comply with the other lot and building standards that have been shown.

Because we are, oh, the next thing that we can look at is related to The dormers, because we're moving away from regulating as a story or half-story the dormers and gables are not as impactful in terms of providing more square footage. Next slide please Finally, there's a few adjustments that we'd like to propose to the red lines that you'll see in the packet today. It's because this amendment was submitted a little while ago and since then there's been a few changes Some of those have to do with recent amendments that we've seen from EOHLC to that state law 760 CMR 71. One of those amendments that we've seen makes the entire lot dimension section of the backyard cottage building type void.

and another one makes the utilities requirement void. And so, the utility requirements is at the bottom here under design standards we currently require that utility services for the backyard cottage must be buried underground Changes to the state law prohibit any specific treatment of utilities for the accessory dwelling unit that is protected use. We also received some outside feedback that the term total or the word total in total gross floor area could be confusing. And so we would like to strike the word Total and just use the term Gross Floor Area Max, just to be as clear as possible. And finally, there's that PDF mistake that I mentioned earlier related to the orientation restrictions. We'd like to add 3.1.10 The amendments are the same for that building type as they are for the others

and with that I believe is there another slide okay great with that um i'll open it for questions or comments thank you

Thank you very much. So I want to get to the public comment as soon as possible, I just wanted to clarify my understanding big picture From the presentation, from the fact sheet that's attached to the agenda it sounds to me like the state law requires us to allow an ADU to be the same height as the principal building on a lot is that correct so and you know i don't know if there's someone on this call what We have to become compliant with the state law on that element of this?

Thank you, Chair. Yes, under the state law, the protected use accessory dwelling unit cannot have a more restrictive height restriction than we have on the principal building. That's correct.

Okay, and then the thing that as I read this that we do have control over is the overall square footage. We could turn that knob down to 900 at a minimum. Is that right? Okay, I mean, I'll hold my kind of big picture thoughts on this. But for members of the public, I think it's maybe clarifying to understand that elements being voiced on us by a recent state law. And there's sort of, there's a couple elements that we have some discretion over. Okay, so I see. I don't know chair Aboff do you want to call on your members?

If I may just quickly share Ewen-Campen, Courtney thank you so much for the presentation. Will planning staff be able to join a planning board meeting to answer more detailed technical questions about this application? I just want to ensure that this isn't our only opportunity to have a dialogue with you because I don't want to take up the time of the public testimony.

To the chair, to you Amelia, Councillor Aboff. Yes we can do that. Thank you so much

I see Member Lynn Richards' hand up. Lynn, do you want to raise something before we have public testimony on this topic?

Well yes and no Thank you for the presentation. This was fantastic. I'm very sorry, but I need to drop off as previously discussed and you wanted it on the record. Thank you so much, Lynn.

Have a great evening.

Okay, bye.

Chair Ewen-Campen, happy New York Republic testimony. Thank you.

Thank you all very much and thank you for the presentation. So, for members of the public we're going to open this public hearing I'll say at the start of this also we're gonna leave the public comment period open for written public comments until Friday October 30th So this is not your only opportunity to give comment on this. You can provide written comment to public comments at somervillema.gov And so for everyone speaking here tonight, we ask that you please give your name If you're comfortable, your address or your affiliation if you're with a business and keep your comments to two minutes tonight. And that's just out of respect for all the other public speakers to make sure that we hear from everyone tonight. so if you wish to speak tonight please use the raise hand function on your zoom i'm going to call on people in order and I'll try to give a little preview of who's up next

and we'll unmute you on our end after I call your name so first up we have Michelle Hansen and after that Daniel Liu hi can you hear me Yes, welcome.

Good. Thank you. First of all, thank you, Councilor Ewen-Campen for explaining the size and the height part of it because I thought I was going a little crazy because it seems to me that the state regulation is 900 square feet or 50% of the square footage of the main house or domicile, whatever it's called. and so we are going to want to allow by right almost twice as much as that. That makes no sense to me at all I am not against these units, by the way I'm very much in favor of them I just think the size of it is excessive and I also worry about the height as well. But if we can't do anything about that, I think we really do need to rein in the size square footage of it and not sort of just going based on what's already happened which is I would also like to just move on for a second as to something that...

What's talked about earlier was there's a change in the state law, which seems to me is going to be a nightmare for the city of Somerville. So I just am very worried about what's going to happen to like art space and you know fab and what's going to happen with... It seems to me we're gonna have to come up with a real plan to deal with basically being guilty, being judged guilty and having to prove ourselves innocent in terms of whether or not We have the right to have our own zoning when it comes to commercial properties and fab and stuff like that. So, that very much worries me. But again, I am for these units. I am just very worried about the size of them. And I appreciate this time. Thanks.

Thank you, Michelle. Next up is Daniel Liu followed by Michael Grunko. Daniel, you're up. We'll unmute you on our end one moment.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Oh hi, Daniel Liu from 36 Monroe. I don't really have a whole lot of comments rather just have maybe two questions and the number one question is Does this propose the change to align with state law, prohibit a homeowner from selling the Becker College as a separate unit? Currently at this moment if I'm not mistaken We have a principal building type of three units and the backyard cottage is at the fourth unit. Now, does this change remove the force unit? That's my number one question.

Thank you very much. So tonight we're not doing like question and answer, but I believe you said you're on Monroe Street which means that I am your ward counselor if you reach out to me directly by email I'm more than happy to get you an answer to that question.

All right. So for that, for the reason I'm just going to let it go because I all have questions. I would just give time to other people. Thank you very much.

Thank You for your time. We have Michael Grunko is next Michael, you should be able to unmute on your end.

The loss of rental units in the city, affordable rental units and city is a crisis. And I am not in favor of doing anything that incentivizes the building of million dollar Additional units here because it goes ahead and incentivizes developers to come in and take any available housing on the market that now holds low- and middle-income families. and turn it into unaffordable housing. Also, I am very distressed at the loss of green space within the city We are a city without parks, with narrow streets, with no barriers between the sidewalks and the houses. And we are filling every last bit of green space. There is no requirement in this law to go ahead and have a minimum amount of green space To go ahead and to give the environment a chance in our neighborhoods.

And so I find that this is objectionable. I can see that it is coming from the state, and it's coming from a position of... What communities unlike Somerville should be doing. Somervill is already the densest city in the state and making it denser By compressing the neighborhoods that are already filled does not make it more livable, does not and does not provide housing for the people who are desperate need of housing. And so I would ask that we find ways to either blunt the effect of this law or to eliminate it in some way. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Michael. Next up we have Edward Wall followed by Denise Provost.

Thank you very much. My name is Edward Wall on Winslow Street at the corner of Clifton. Two things I want to make a point of. It does not seem to me that the state statute allows you to reduce or to increase the square footage beyond the smaller of Steele, and so forth. I don't see that anywhere in the state law Just because you change the name of a building from a dwelling to a dwelling unit in the bylaw doesn't change the fact that it's still an accessory dwelling unit or building under the state statute.

I don't think there's any authority to go ahead and have an accessory dwelling unit, the cottage be anywhere over the 900 feet or the half of the principal dwelling. That's one point. And that's a legal issue that I'm willing to Two other issues are there's no requirement that the renovated buildings that are permitted under these proposed changes be all electric. And I raise that issue because it's a central policy proposition for Somerville to electrify and move away from fossil fuels. And I think given this change in the expansion, you can couple up with that requirement and promote electrification. Third is there's no restriction on pre-removal. So right now, there are some restrictions in Somerville on removing of trees

and the Somerville has a policy to promote municipal forestation and to maintain trees on lots. And so this particular proposal does not protect that policy or advance it. In fact, it contradicts it. So those are my three comments in two minutes. Thank you.

Very well timed. Thank you, Edward. Next up we have Denise Provost followed by Tori Antonino.

Good evening. Thank you for holding this hearing and taking comment. Denise Provo, former lawyer, former I agree with Ed Wall and some of the other lawyers who have commented on this. The law that governs ADUs is not in the Code of Mass Regulations or CMR as was said in the introduction. It's in the statute, it's incorporated now in 40A What's in the Code of Mass Regulations is the Attorney General's regulations, about 24 pages of them which have the force of law but they're not statute law. and are at the moment, I think a work in progress.

The legal arguments aside I would urge you all to take this very slow. There is software now that would enable you to see what the zoning would look like in 3D. which is an important point. I know many or several members of the council were not around for the 2019 zoning or for the 2023 changes and deserve to get a fresh look at what the city is doing with accessory buildings. I think focus groups with architects, planners and builders are one thing focus groups with the public. The public should be able to see the three-dimensional, there needs to be a lot of input here and I urge you to take the time to get people together.

Thank you very much for listening, bye-bye.

Thank You Denise Next up is Tori Antonino, followed by Jane Bestor.

Hi all, it's Tori Antonio. So this is a lot I'm kind of confused and I look forward to following up with counselors on this and yes, having some workshops. Denise, that's a great idea. Maybe our favorite to-do is charrettes just so we can all understand this better. Because if we need to be in compliance with the state and ADUs are by right, we can no longer... We have very little control. Our discretion is limited. We can no Very, a utility line. And we don't have mitigation for preserving green space which the majority of our green space trees included and with those trees comes our turkeys, and our hawks, and all our beautiful creatures.

If we don't have the ability to mitigate those attacks like we're just gonna The house is in a dead scape and I just, I'm so nonplussed and worried. So maybe alongside this ordinance as we become into science We've really got to beep off the green score. I mean, that's like it's not doing the thing we thought it would do. It's creating all these paved and pervious in-quote driveways which Thank you for watching!

There's so much going on, I'm really concerned about not just the lack of the removal of green space but the fact that this natural occurring affordable housing is about to become luxury condos and that's problematic. All right, thanks everybody. Look forward to more conversations.

Thank you, Tori. Next up is Jane Bestor followed by Fannie Harrison. Jane, you should be able to unmute on your end. We're not able to hear you yet Maybe try muting and unmuting again or... Unfortunately, we're still not hearing you. We're going to move on but if you're able to figure out the technical issue please raise your hand again. We certainly want to hear from you tonight. Next up, we'll have Fanny Harrison followed by Anne Vigorito.

Good evening everyone. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts. I have a lot in common with what was previously said and my first impression listening to this presentation that I'm a bit skeptical with like an unhinged, you know... Dimension and not regulating as much as we could on the overall square footage. My concern is that because of that setup there might be basically appetite for developers to develop like separate luxury condos and basically when a regular luxury unit is sold Everything is torn down and then regular people like me cannot outbid developers to buy the land and just renovate and do units that are actually...

I share the same concern for the decrease in green space overall and a question i have for this committee is more regarding the building separation remove minimum removal because I have concern in terms of fire safety. What do we want to do is like with... Such increased densification, don't we have any other concern for like access for the fire department and fire safety in general? Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Next up, we have Anne Vigorito followed by Becca W.

Good evening, this is Anne Vigorito. I'm an attorney in Somerville. My office is at 424 Broadway right at the top of Winter Hill. I really enjoyed the presentation tonight. I think it was extremely helpful. Somerville has been experiencing somewhat of a growth problem. and that definitely you know will affect the tax base you know in that when the tax space is affected it you know does propose you know burdens on the homeowners here in Somerville The backyard cottages have been a tremendous allowance towards growth for the city. And as spoken, I think in the presentation and even some of the other Speakers, people on the planning board. It allows for multi-generational families to live on a property. I'm at a point where my kids are in college so

It would be great to have a backyard cottage for my elderly mom and my college kids to, you know, luxury condos these are also additional ways if they're not sold you know they're kept as an ADU it's a source of income for specific homeowners so I do think it's a good idea to stay aligned with what the state has provided and I appreciate the opportunity this evening thank you

Thank you, Anne. Next up we have Becca W. Yes, it's a little quiet but I think we can.

Is that any better?

Yes, I think so

Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Becca Wolfson and I live on School Street in Somerville. I was displaced from my rental apartment of eight and a half years in Somerville in May due to the creation of an AD. My landlord opportunistically separated out the second and third floor of the triple-decker I lived in to create a rentable third floor. Third Floor Unit, that was considered to be an ADU by zoning. In my situation the permit was applied for in January and we as renters across all three floors of the building were not notified about the upcoming construction until April, a week before he wanted to begin the construction. and he wanted to do the construction while we continued to live there. After successfully kicking us all out, the price on the existing units went up more than 25%.

I'm interested in adding a requirement with proof that the landlord has notified all existing tenants of a site with a permit application for an ADU at the time the application is placed. I'm pleased to hear the city is participating in the Bloomberg Smarter Cities process and that one piece of that work might be changing and modifying the application process itself. I think that could provide an excellent opportunity to look at this and other possible ways to protect renters while still increasing the housing supply. Also just add, everyone in our building was kicked out due to interpretation of code that apparently required a sprinkler installation even though a new egress was being created. So each floor would have two egresses. One of which would be directly to the exterior. It seems that should have kept a triple-decker exempt from this invasive sprinkler installation that led to our displacement. I hope the city can work on advocating for either state legislative

to encourage interpretation that better protects renters from being displaced. Thank you.

Thank You Becca. Next we have Jane Bestor

Thank you for this opportunity to speak and thank you especially for the opportunity to submit comments until the end of October. I heartily concur with the comments of Denise Provo and others, Ed Wolf and the woman who just spoke not to mention others. concerning green space, et cetera. I would like to say, I find it particularly outrageous that but Ms. Chena of course has not been working in Somerville very long and does not understand that what has incensed people are precisely the developments that she has chosen to take as a standard from 2022 2026 that have so outraged so many people in Somerville. The situation is completely out of control. and it matters hugely, hugely to increase the amount of square footage from 900 square feet to 1,750

Squarefeet. Furthermore, I do not understand how you can arrive at a three-story building because the height truly matters if in fact you set The standard for Somerville at 900 square feet. The concerns about losing renters is huge. In Bill White's article in the Somerville Times, he points out that the city since 2020 has lost 675 rental units. I've been a renter in this city for 40 years. I understand the problems for renters, affordability and of course renter's voices and the losers from these schemes which involve the city changing The market value of real estate in Somerville. That's what this is really all about and that's a huge problem. Thank you. Goodbye.

Thank you, Jane. I want to make a note to the public. I don't think it's appropriate to attack city staff, their public servants This is a proposal from Mayor Wilson Obviously, elected officials criticize us all you want. But city staff are public servants here representing the folks who hire them. So I'd ask that public comments... You're not recognized. Thank you, Jane. Just please do not attack city staff. Next up, we have Meredith Porter.

Hi, Meredith Porter 104 Josephine Ave. First of all I'd like to second the points that Michael Grimko made a while back. I thought they were spot on. In its present form, I believe that this proposed amendment would have terrible effects and it needs to be redrafted with changes to these and other sections of the zoning ordinance. Unfortunately, the state law regarding ADUs was not written with Somerville small lot sizes and form-based zoning in mind. Some changes proposed here are required for compliance with the law, but others are not. This proposal would lead to yet more displacement with sales to developers eager to use every available square foot, creating luxury condos and also increasing the pattern of building up to eight units, none affordable on more lots after splitting them. More neighboring large trees, which are so beneficial would be destroyed after damage to their roots.

More green space would be lost. At the very least, the three-foot proposed minimum rear setback should be increased to no less than 10 feet. The three- foot proposed minimum side setback to five feet in conjunction with changes to other sections, such as increases to three-to-five foot side setbacks for front driveway access in our district. and the minimum maximum gross floor area should be reduced to 900 square feet or half that of the principal building as required by state law. Please reject this and ensure that it is redrafted for the benefit of everyone. And I'll add that on the gross floor area The floor plate is very different from the growth floor area restriction. And restricting it in this way is going to Thank you, Meredith. Next up we have Frank Malsbenden.

Hi, thank you. Frank Melzman. I'm on Campbell Park in Davis Square. I don't think anybody expected backyard cottages to be this big when they first became a thing. In fact, at a previous meeting on this topic even city councilors acknowledged that they were surprised. One councillor stated what's been described is absolutely not consistent with what I thought we were giving folks permission to build Another counselor stated, I envisioned something modest. I envision something that is observably smaller than the primary structure and would feel like a backyard cottage, not a second freestanding home on the lot. So when I heard those comments back in May, I think it was, I thought that meant that the city was acknowledging Loopholes that needed to be fixed. I didn't expect the loopholes to be fix by making them official. So, you know, I worry about displacement too. I echo Merit on this. In the past developer would

Come to you with a proposal to buy your house and they would split your house into two condos. And now I guess they're just going to come and buy your Put another house on your lot. Either way, you still move away because that's just how it pencils out best for everybody. but I'm just wondering who in my neighborhood is gonna be the first to be approached with an offer they can't refuse and have to move away. It's probably going to be the one who's most vulnerable So that would be a real loss, I think for the city. So I urge the city to go back and look hard about all the ramifications here and see if there's a better way to conform with the state law or maybe we can have representation on Beacon Hill that can fight for Somerville.

Thank you. Next, we have Evan Stellman.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

All right. Hi, my name is Evan Stellman. I'm with Colsa Design. So what I'm seeing here is that this amendment seems to be addressing two separate issues. that maybe this is what the city wants to do, but I think it deserves to be studied a little bit more. The first issue is obviously the state regulations for ADUs, but the second issue is being that under the current zoning, the backyard cottages are coming out a lot bigger and people expected them to be. It's my understanding from reading through these revisions that the new use regulations would not allow a fourth dwelling unit back there, There should be an opportunity for a fourth dwelling unit back there and maybe tighten up the dimensional regulations so they're not as large as they are now. and then possibly creating another building type for the ADU that's in line with the state regulations. That's just my thoughts on that, thank you.

Thank you Evan. So at this time there are no hands raised if there are folks still wishing to speak on this. Okay, Bill White, you are up.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to try to be brief. This is the worst thing that I have seen that goes back to like 1975 when I reviewed Somerville's planning as they were going over their zoning. This is, and I have to be very clear on it, I agree with all the comments about the dimensions and stuff but I am frightened I'm frightened because I don't see intellectual honesty at this point, okay? State law doesn't require any of the stuff that they're proposing. This is like misadvertising. If I was the Attorney General, I'd slap an injunction on them. It's very important. I'm going to request Mr. Chair and the members of the committee and any other city councilors that you obtain an independent analysis of what state law requires of us, okay?

Because I have reviewed it not with a biased mind. In my view is what state law requires, is that any zoning district that permits single family homes has to give the single homeowner The opportunity to put in an ADU. Those three units you don't call them ADUs, but under state law we go beyond our requirement to begin with. Okay? The backyard cottages would only be required for a single family homeowner who does not want to put a second family on. They wanna keep it a single family and they would have the right under state law to have a backyard cottage as an ADU, that's it. And I hear all these arguments and stuff

And I think it's very important so that the city starts, the planning board, you folks, the ZBA when it comes to them with an understanding of what state law requires and what do we have to do to meet state law but we can also do more. But that distinction is necessary. The other thing is I've heard fictions. We've been hearing great fiction stories. I'm a good fan of fiction. We had these for how many years? Remember when we were going to do it? For homeowners to rent it, but it was going to have to be affordable. Then we couldn't do it because nobody wanted to afford it. So then it was opened up. Nobody's going to build any of these for their grandmother to move in, okay, for their kids. Look at what's been constructed so far. This has all been done to promote developers

Okay, maybe there are people in positions who want to say well we've put an X number of new units so we've done Bill I'm going to ask you to just please bring it to a conclusion just out of respect for all the people that we have here tonight The conclusion is this This will be designed, if this is implemented with these dimensions, it's going to allow someone to get a 300 square foot footprint. Okay? Any developer now is going to go to any one of our residential units with the thought that they can buy it, evict all of the tenants and put in Our luxury condominium in that 300 square foot. So we're going to wipe out rental units, and we're gonna promote more of the backyard development We have lost 20% of our residential units in this city since the turn of the century, since 2000.

And we're going to keep losing 200 or 300 a year. It's not gonna be radical overnight but in another 20 years We're going to have lost another 5,000 or 6,000 and only rich people who buy condos are going to be able to live in this city. And you're gonna be given the middle finger to all of the people who want to live as tenants in this community. I'm sorry, excuse myself but that's it. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. You've always been a fair man and congratulations on your election.

Great to hear from you, Bill. Thank you. Next up we have Joshua Michael and Joe Lynch

Hi, my name is Joshua Mischel of 1 Clark Street in Somerville. I support the city's efforts in harmonizing with the State Code. I understand this was quite a difficult process to figure out how to actually align with it and they appreciate the city's efforts on this In counter to what some other people say, I do know of some folks who are personally trying to build ADUs for themselves. One of my neighbors down the street is attempting to do so for themselves and seems like they're having a pretty smooth time at least so far on it. So it really is for people to build for themselves as well, not just selling out. Thank you.

Thank You Joshua. Next up is Joe Lynch

Joe Lynch has disappeared.

Are there any other members of the public wishing to speak tonight? Give it one, two, three. Wig Zaymor, the floor is yours.

Yeah, hi. Thanks very much. I did think the presentation was quite clear. I want to just mention one tiny footnote to that. Federal guidance is that fonts have to be at least 12 points And I think the right-hand side of this slide complied with that, but I think that the left hand side was probably too small on most computer screens for compliance with that federal guidance. That's just a footnote. One thing that I'm really concerned about is the departure from the original Summer Vision. which called for us to get to live work balance, to have the ratio of jobs and workers in the town be the same. That is by far the most environmentally responsible We certainly feel that in Somerville because of

I-93 and Route 38. We've just wrapped another couple papers where we're up to over 150 papers in the National Journal of Medicine, including our first five doctorates and we're showing half of the people within 400 feet of those highways if they don't have perfect air filtration End up with systolic blood pressure problems, and systolic is the number one driver of death on earth. And the number two driver ironically is particulate matter. Those ultrafines have no regulations at all. So that's an issue So environmentally, when you move away from live work balance, you are doing everything wrong. Environmentally, you're driving local pollution You are driving regional pollution and you are driving global climate pollution.

And between that and the economics, I'm considered. Thank you.

Thank you, Wig. Is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item tonight? Going once, going twice... Julian Lewis

Good evening, can you hear me? Yes. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Julian Lewis I'm a business owner in Somerville Cambridge Realty Group. I'm I've worked with architects in designing some backyard cottages under the current provisions. I would like to just say that the current 500 that I support, Mayor's proposed amendments. The current 576 square foot floor plate is challenging to design any type of housing in. I understand the concerns about height, and I think that that's something that can absolutely be looked at. We don't want backyard cottages, I think towering over or being in the same height range as the principal structures. I do believe allowing the expanded footprint will be helpful for flow and circulation and having a

units that are able to accommodate families or able to Designed, or it's currently allowed the 500 square foot floor plate I think incentivizes going below grade and above grade. So I think in conclusion, green scores are still needed to be met and maintained They are and have been. And I think that the relaxed and more permissive allowances for and I think that these allowing these backyard cottages is also good for affordability across the city and adding to the city's housing stock.

And I thank you for your time this evening.

I see a hand from Edward Wall who has already spoken. We're not going to get second comments from the same people. Is there someone else in the home? who has not spoken wishing to speak is that what's going on okay um are there anyone else wishing to comment on this item tonight All right, so we will keep the public comment period for this item open until October 30th. That's a Friday at noon and Chair Aboff that works with the planning board as well?

The planning board will do the same.

Excellent. And for those wishing to send written comment, please email publiccomments at somervillema.gov. And obviously, I know that city councilors and members of the planning board will have many follow-up questions for this. So thank you to everybody who came out to speak on this. And we have several other items on the agenda, so I invite you to please stay for those as well. With that, we will return to the beginning of the public hearings. 1.1, requesting ordainment of an amendment to sections 3.2.17 and others of the zoning ordinance to correct parking maximums. I believe we have Justin Schreiber here, is that right? From the Mobility Department. Welcome! What's your title, Justin? Um, senior planner.

Senior planner. Welcome. Thank you chair. Yes my name is Justin Schreiber I'm a senior transportation planner in the mobility division And I have a brief presentation tonight on corrections to the parking maximums that were implemented through an amendment a little less than two years ago from today. On the next slide, I have the goals of this proposal. And in bold really the goal of this amendment which is to pass the full slate of parking maximums that We intended to pass back with the 2024 amendment and correct just an administrative oversight with the previous proposal. So essentially in the ordinance that was passed, there's a series of red lines in each vehicular parking table changing each parking maximum or minimum eliminating minimums. And then there's also a clean copy Aboff,

The full proposal was in the clean copies, but then there were just a series of typos and mistakes that were not captured and were still in place in the redline version. So I'll add that there were Over 1,200 red lines to arcane excellence throughout the code. So a very, very large number of detailed changes and we're talking about a few dozen that did not pass as intended. So in the image on the right I have a picture of one of those tables, those duplicate tables as amended. This is the table that we presented to Lanius and Planning Board about two years ago and then I've highlighted in red for this table The larger goals for this amendment are to limit the creation of new parking,

In locations close to rapid transit, we know that parking generates traffic and we want especially in our most transit accessible areas to limit how much is created. So that's a quarter mile or about a five minute walk for commercial uses and a half mile or about a 10 minute walk for residential uses. We also wanted to simplify the parking tables, these tables used to take up almost three pages with a wide variety of uses and they've been consolidated down to less than one page. And then lastly, keeping the special permit for parking relief to exceed the parking maximum so going from a system which had high parking minimum requirements outside of our transit areas to one that does not have any parking requirements outside our transit area and then within the transit areas setting reasonable upper limits on maximum parking that can be built

and going from a system which permitted a lot of parking and you had to ask permission to do less to a system, which permitted much less parking. And then you could ask permission On the next slide, I have a summary of the specific uses and maximums that would be changed along these six different uses. There's a few notes here For specific uses that either we never change with the original amendment or we're proposing to change now to leave in place the parking maxims that are there. So that includes a civic and institutional use, commercial services, food and beverage, retail sales, cannabis and cannabis retail which is regulated separately Office, which with this amendment now includes research and development labs as well. And then for residential housing as well

The change is to include the UR district, the urban residential district in the transit area maximum that we put in place for MR and HR districts. And just to summarize some of the unintended consequences that came into place with the mistakes in the previous amendment is that We have commercial services in MR5 of a parking entitlement that's two and a half times what's entitled in MR3, 4 or 6. We have parking entitlements in MR6 which are double that in MR 3, 4 and 5. and we unfortunately in fact raised the parking maximum for lab and research development buildings by about 10% rather than lowering it as intended. On the last slide, I just have a list of the tables that will be impacted.

It's it's just the vehicular parking tables in each of those districts and I'm happy to answer any questions about that as well. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Justin. So this is literally fixing typos? Exactly. Sure. Okay. Like something, you know, a dozen half a dozen out of 1200. Okay, are there any questions from colleagues? Seeing none, let's declare this public hearing open. Members of the public wishing to speak please just use the raise hand function and I just ask that you keep your comments to two minutes and please introduce yourself by name and address I'm so sorry how wrong I get your name every time. Welcome, Joshua. You're up.

Hi, I'm Joshua Mischel of 1 Clark Street in Somerville. Thank you guys for putting in the effort to decrease the parking minimums across city. It'll help with reducing car usage, which is better for reducing traffic and improving people's health. I do note that this seems to actually increase one of the maximums. for UR urban residential from none no maximum to 0.5 per thousand square feet so essentially one parking spot for two homes I would suggest an amendment to change that to keep that at no new parking. That is already one of our mid-density districts and we should encourage our denser districts to Thank you.

Thank you very much. Are there other members of the public wishing to speak on this? All right, going once, going twice. We'll keep this item, we'll close the public hearing tonight and keep this open until October 30th as well. And Chair Aboff I understand you have a statement from Member Capuano as well?

Thank you Mr. Chair, I do um if you'll please give me a moment to read this For the record, apologies to Chairman Ewen-Campen for me not being able to be here tonight. I want to address the three main issues I see with this amendment. First, we already have parking maximums in our ordinance for commercial and mixed-use buildings and transit zones. We're proposing to reduce these on a building by building basis. It's good that we want to encourage walking in our commercial areas However, we ought to be discussing district-wide parking needs and not looking at this piece now. We started this discussion years ago about Union Square. We continued that discussion a year or so ago about assembly. We should have a similar one for all of our squares and transit zones. Second, on the proposal to create parking maximums in urban residential apartment buildings I can count on one hand the number of permits the planning board has been asked to grant to build more parking than what was allowed. It's almost always been we want to build less.

Building structured parking is one of the most expensive components in our project per square foot. Developers simply aren't asking to build more parking than they absolutely need to. This is a solution in want of a problem. All this solution would do is make it harder to justify the expense of building the housing we say we need. If someone can't make the project work on paper with the parking they believe they need to rent or sell their units, they just won't build it. Third, our own data says that just making it harder for people to own a car here, hoping we'll get so annoyed that we go car-free has never worked. Even on the planning board where we're all advocates for multimodal planning every single one of us owns a car save one From 2022 to 2026, the number of cars registered in the city decreased by about 3,000 but the number parking stickers stayed almost exactly the same at around 33,000. That infers that there's now a greater percentage of cars being parked on this street than there were five years ago Also over that time we've averaged 80,000 residents and issued an average of 32,000 residential stickers.

That's 40% of every human in the city having a residential sticker. 78% of Somerville households have a car, only 22% don't. That 22% number hasn't changed meaningfully over the last 18 years since I began looking at this data The numbers dipped a bit in 2023 and 2024 but are back up again in 2025 and 26 We've done a lot to try and encourage people. We add t-stops, we added a 24 7 bus lane for buses that don't run 24 7 We've added curb bump outs and speed bumps everywhere. We put bike lanes on every street we can, even if people don't bike on those streets. I see you Powder House Boulevard, I drive you everyday! We've also taken away hundreds of street spots. In 2024, the city reported that it had taken out over 200 street spots in the last five years. At the time, the numbers didn't include Central Street, Summer, Elm or Holland. This week Mobility reported that in 2025 and 2026 alone we took out an additional 121 street spots, over 300 fewer places to park when the number of residential stickers keeps going up. I thought I was going nuts.

I'm glad to see it's got to be from something else since where am I going to park has literally gotten worse. Friends, despite all this, it isn't working. It's just making us mad at you. I don't want to be mad at The only thing that's actually worked is when we walked the walk and restricted the number of stickers we issue. The planning board has for years, which eventually got baked into our ordinance Put a condition for new buildings that says if you don't build parking because people don't use cars here, cars registered at your building can't get parking stickers. We call your bluff. Since that works, we should talk about expanding it to including buildings under a parking maximum. But we haven't done that here. We can also cap the number of stickers every single dwelling unit new or old can get. Nothing prohibits me from buying 20 cars and getting stickers for all of them, but we haven't done that here. If we want to talk big, we need to act big. If you want to reduce cars, do it. Don't simply hope that it'll happen. We should legislate to achieve what we want to accomplish. Respectfully, I think we can achieve that but this amendment falls far short. Thank you, Mo Capuano.

Mr. Chair, may I ask that you send that so I can attach it as a comment to the meeting? I will have Michael send it. Thank you so much.

Excellent. Thank you, Clerk. All right, so we will keep that item in committee and move on to 1.2 on the agenda. This is Item 26-1259, Requesting Ordainment of an Amendment to Sections 2.4.4 and others... to remove ground story elevation requirements. And just for the public, I'll note there was also an item submitted by Councilor Link related to this and these are very similar amendments and I think ultimately we'll be able to if there are elements that are missing from one presence in the other will be able address those during the amendment process. So who would like to take this? Is this Senior Planner Sina again?

Yeah, I'm presented. Thank you. Okay, this is the proposed zoning amendment related to ground story elevations. Next slide please. A quick summary of this amendment. This amendment eliminates ground story elevation requirements for all building types in all zoning districts. Following the adoption of this amendment, developers would still be able to include a ground story elevation if they wish to but they would no longer be required to do so. The purpose of this amendment is several things. One of them is to standardize requirements for all building types and zoning districts Another is to make it easier for new buildings to comply with ADA regulations A third is simplifying dimensional standards in Somerville zoning ordinance when appropriate and removing items that are contrary to or duplicative with the building code or other federal state or federal regulations.

So some of the research and engagement that informs this amendment includes investigation with internal staff experts, as well as review of past permits and existing objectives of plans. Next slide please As for background, the values for existing ground floor elevation requirements are representative of many of the existing buildings in Somerville and that's how some of these were included in the first place as dimensions and building types. However, there is no strong public purpose to requiring a ground floor elevation. Ground story elevation requirements automatically introduce additional requirements for ramp or other accessible entry methods in order to comply with ADA requirements And then these ADA requirements can create additional planning, construction and compliance checks during the building process. Next slide

Our recommended edits in this amendment include striking out the ground story elevation from section 2.4 standards and measurements under massing and height so we've struck that out you can see in the red lines on the right It also includes striking out ground story elevation minimum requirements within the building types massing and height table. The example shown here is for 3.1.7, the cottage building type. The impacted sections of the Somerville zoning ordinance show that this same amendment shown for the cottage here would also be applied to other building types in other districts, including the neighborhood residents, the urban residents in mid-rise three four five and six for each time that a building type requires this we have struck it up in this amendment next slide please

and that's all I have for this so ready for questions or comments.

Excellent, thank you very much. Colleagues are there questions before we open this up? All right, seeing none we will open the public hearing on this item. Members of the public wishing to speak please use the raise hand function and uh please introduce yourself give your name uh your address if you're comfortable or affiliation And please keep your comments to two minutes. First up, we have Joshua again. Welcome.

Hi, my name is Joshua Meeschel of Wonder Park Street. I support this change. I've seen multiple examples in new construction that have been required to have a wheelchair lift or ramp to comply with the standard Both of which are expensive and interfere with our green space needs in the city. I would like to encourage Laney's Committee to take the adjustments from Councilor Link's proposal, which alter the architectural design guidelines so that those new ground floor homes with level entry will have full size windows. Without that change, they will instead most likely have half size windows that will be quite small and not let in as much light. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item? Crystal Huff, welcome

Hi. Sorry, I'm also in the MAMAS coordinator meeting at the moment. My name is Crystal Huff. My pronouns are they them. I currently live in Ward 5. I am really excited for Somerville to have increasingly in-depth, nuanced conversations about accessibility. The red line that was attached to the agenda did not include all of the same items as the redline that John Link's item to city council attended to. There's a Venn diagram of overlap but they both have items that are not in the other I just want to request that if we were talking about removing

Ground story elevation from the zoning tables that we also remove it from the language attached to the table makes sense to me and I also just want to say like People tend to think that if accessibility is needed for aging in place, that a ramp should be installed. and part of the reason why I got super activated on this issue is because if we were to attempt to build an ADA compliant ramp for our house where the front door is elevated five feet from the sidewalk level. The ramp would I reached the opposite side of the street before it reached the ground because there's no other way to construct it, which obviously my neighbors would not like to see as well. So I know everybody...

says that they care about accessibility and this is an aspect of accessibility that logistically I would just like to see us make happen and put together. Thank you.

Are there other members of the public wishing to speak on this item tonight? Going once, going twice. Okay, thank you all. We will close the public hearing tonight and we will keep public comment open on this item until Friday, October 30th along with the others. If you'd like to send written comment that is publiccomments at somervillema.gov and that brings us to item 1.5 which is requesting ordainment of an amendment to sections 2.4.5 and others for the of the Somerville zoning ordinance to clarify requirements for principal entrances this is item 26 13 37 Ms. Sina, the floor is yours.

Thank you. As you said this is the proposed zoning amendment which clarifies principal entrances in that Somerville zoning ordinance. Next slide, please. There are three parts to this Zoning Amendment. The first part is is a change which would allow for principal entrances to exist on the side of a building as long as there is an entrance provided on the front facade. The second part of this is allowing a principal entrance to be on the rear or the side of an external accessory dwelling unit. As a result of both Parts 1 and 2 that I just described, we've also proposed some updated text which would allow street numbers to be allowed on the facade wall.

and then the third part here is an amendment which removes principal entrance spacing requirements on commercial building ground floors so that's a quick summary I'll jump into kind of the more in-depth piece of each of these next next slide please so that first part is again removing or allowing principal entrances on the side of a structure given that an entrance to the ground story dwelling unit is on the front facade of the building. This image here on the right shows a triple-decker which has units, one on each story including one ground story unit which has an entrance on the front facade that that um front façade door is preserving street facing access and character

However, the principal entrance to the structure is actually on the side. About halfway through you can see a door entrance and so the principal entrance language that we currently see in the code describes your principal entrance as the main entry door for pedestrians into a building and upper story use or a ground story commercial space. So when we're talking about changing the principal entrance here, we're taking about moving that principle... We are talking about the entrance to the upper stories at least in this example. So there are times in which the way that a lot is organized or the way it exists, it might make sense to allow the entrance to upper stories on the side while still preserving an entrance on the front of the street. The resulting text update related to this is that

Street address concept because the current street address is attached to The principal entrance When we move the principal entrance to the side, we also want to allow those three address to be placed on the front facade regardless of where the principal entrances. Next slide please The second part of this amendment is allowing for a principal entrance to be on the rear or side of an external accessory dwelling unit. This is related to the fact that it may be reasonable for an accessory dwelling unit to have an entrance on either the side or the rear depending on where that Accessory Dwelling Unit is located and what it's facing. There may be an alley on the back of the lot or there may be another street

or the backyard unit, or the Backyard Cottage or the Accessory Dwelling Unit may not be in a place where it can be seen from the main road. And so this is just an update which allows a little bit more flexibility in terms of design. Again, we have a text update related to the street address allowing that to be on the front facade if it's desirable. Next slide. so here is the actual language related to that this is again in section 2.4 standards and measurements part five is uses and features The new language would read under pedestrian access, buildings must have at least one principal entrance. Part 1 of that is the principal entrance may be located on the front or side of the building provided that at least one entrance is provided on the facade. and to the principal entrance of an external accessory dwelling unit may be located on the front, side or rear of the building.

We have struck out the line principal entrances must be located on the facade, provide both ingress and egress and be operable at all times. The second two parts of that line about ingress and egress and operability at all times, those are items which are already included in the building code and do not need to be duplicated here. So we're not changing those by removing them. Next slide please. This here is the language regarding street address location. We have added to part B here of the development standards that those four letters or four words on the facade wall So then the whole thing reads, all residential building types must identify the street address either on the principal entrance door above or beside the principal entrance on the facade wall, or on a mailbox. So this is just allowing that street address number to go on the front façade if the principal entrances elsewhere

that impacts all these different building types in all these districts described on the right here. That includes districts, neighborhood residents, urban residents, building types within the mid-rise districts High-rise districts, commercial districts and then one special district that's the Powderhouse District. Next slide please The third part of this is removing entrance spacing requirements for grounds, floor, commercial building principal entrances. The current principal entrance spacing requirement for commercial buildings have really been designed to indirectly control the number of commercial units that appear on the ground floor. However, this approach has shown to be ineffective as the requirements can be satisfied by adding non-functional doors or Preconstructed units that do not lead to a different number of commercial units within that space.

So removing this requirement kind of instead removes the unnecessary design constraints on commercial principal entrances This is... A requirement that has caused some issues with projects in the past. By removing the 30 maximum principal entrance spacing requirement, Somerville's zoning ordinance might better allow smaller commercial unit footprints as well. Next slide. Here we have an example of a commercial structure. It's the dominoes on Cutter and Elm. It complies with the current principal entrance spacing requirements, but it has non-functioning doors so that Rightmost three orange arrows are pointing to doors that have been welded shut. And so while this meets the current requirements, it just shows Requiring the principal entrance spacing has not led to more or different commercial units in this space.

I'll also mention that, actually I'll do it on the next slide. Next slide please. Thank you. So this is what this amendment would look like. It really is just crossing out ground story, entrance spacing max 30 feet in each of these impacted sections of the Somerville zoning ordinance So that's in the mid-rise general and commercial buildings currently have this requirement. It would strike it from each of those high rise general and General and Commercial Buildings. I'll mention that the facade requirements are the same, so we're not necessarily losing windows or fenestration with this amendment. It's just the entrance spacing requirement. Next slide. That's all I have for this one. Ready for questions or comments?

Excellent. Thank you very much. Are there questions, colleagues? This is primarily motivated by issues with triple-deckers, right? So let's open this up for public comment. Members of the public wishing to speak on this item, please use the raise hand function and please keep your comments to two minutes. You can introduce yourself by name and where you live or your affiliation. Is there anyone wishing to speak on this item tonight? Jane Vestor.

Can you hear me? Yes. Jane Bester, 45 Ibbotson Street, Somerville. It seems to me I'm worried about the allowance for a primary school Entrance on the rear facade of accessory dwelling units. And it seems to me in line with Denise Provo's argument that the city really needs to Hold charrettes and do some modeling and have public discussion that this provision be included because of the small lot sizes in Somerville. and I mean the extraordinary proximity allowed to neighboring residences.

that the there's a danger that the backyard, that the back facade entry allowance for accessory dwellings would create problems for neighbors that really need to be considered with a wider audience so I would ask you to please take that up. in a more engaged public setting where people can really visualize and understand what's going on. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Joshua Meeschel of 1 Clark Street in Somerville. I support this proposal to provide flexibility to different entrances to the building I've seen a couple of issues where especially for prefabricated units there have been issues on actually fitting a door in that complies with zoning and has led to additional costs which makes the housing more expensive to build. I think that it's okay to have these entrances on the sides or rear of buildings. You see that sometimes in the vernacular of older buildings, having them outside and a lot of houses have back door entrance leading to the backyards so don't see that it being a big deal to allow them on the back of the backyard garage as well. to create the space between the backyard college and the primary building to be kind of more of a communal space that no one directly enters onto. Thank you

Thank you. Next up is Denise Provost.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for listening again. Thanks I simply want to say that it's been brought to my attention by families and individuals in this city that a lot of the new construction is not accessible and doesn't comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, on which I am no expert. Although I know that it's been in effect a long time and The uptake has been slow. It's also been brought to my attention that a lot of the new construction in Somerville has asked for variances from Architectural Access Board from existing ADA requirements.

Sometimes by making misstatements and that there's also new construction going in that violates accessibility requirements of the ADA. and doesn't even apply for variances. So I don't know who the appropriate gatekeepers are here, possibly ISD still overburdened Possibly still inadequately staffed, but what the consequence is that opportunities for accessible dwelling units are lost all the time. and I thank those who are bringing this to the attention of a city council for a fix. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Denise. Is there anyone else here tonight wishing to comment on this item? Going once, going twice. All right, we will close the public hearing tonight and leave the written public comment period open until Friday, October 30th at noon. And written comment can be sent to publiccomments at somervillema.gov Thank you to everyone who spoke on this item. And that brings us to... The final item on our agenda tonight, 1.6. This is item 261338, requesting ordainment of an amendment to sections 2.1.1 and others of the Somerville Zoning Ordinance to update terminology for affordable dwelling units and commercial spaces. The other ADU in our current zoning, so take it away!

Thank you chair Yeah, this is the proposed zoning amendment to update some terminology within Somerville Zoning Code. Next slide please There's two changes in terminology we're looking at with this amendment. The first is related to the term affordable dwelling unit The amendment would replace all uses of the term affordable dwelling unit in Somerville zoning ordinance with the term price-restricted dwelling unit instead. The purpose here is to prevent confusion between affordable dwelling unit and accessory dwelling unit. The other purpose is to align with how the state and other communities are using the term accessory dwelling units and the acronym ADU

The second part of this amendment is a switch in terminology in Somerville's ordinance that replaces the term commercial space with commercial unit or units instead. This amendment is really just to make standards related to commercial space more clear by aligning with how other communities use that term and make it a little bit easier to regulate commercial units than we currently have. Next slide, please. So the first part of this, again, the proposed amendment replaces the term affordable dwelling unit with price-restricted dwelling unit. Here's an example red line, purple lines. but red line of what that would look like as you can see affordable dwelling unit has been crossed out and replaced with price restricted dwelling unit and ADU has been crossed out and replaced with PRDU.

Just to clarify, this amendment does not in any way change affordability standards or requirements it is simply a terminology update so it goes through each time This term is used and it replaces it with a new term. Next slide. A little bit about the terminology that We've chosen here the language price restricted is meant to describe the cost that these units are kept within specific limits. and that qualifying units are only made available to eligible or certified individuals. And then the term dwelling unit meant to refer to residential units for people to live in Why did the housing and planning staff agree on PRDU as the best option? One of the reasons here is that this term refers to the unit rather than the household or individual within it.

The zoning ordinance itself impacts the unit itself and not the people within in a direct regulation type of way. It also avoids any connotation with households or people It's also an effort to use accurate and plain language. The use of the word restricted accurately determines the designation of units themselves. Restricted in the housing world is meant kept within specific limits or made available only to certain group of authorized people. Language related to housing can be dense and complex, and different places use different words. So especially when translated it could get confusing. Somerville's zoning ordinance terminology aims to use plain language and minimize opportunities for mistranslation or confusion. Next slide please. As far as the second piece of this, the commercial space to commercial units rebrand. This is an example of what that looks like in some of the red lines

Where it previously was written commercial space, we've crossed out space and replaced it with units. There's sometimes when we've replaced space with unit non-plural when it's appropriate clarification this amendment does not in any way change commercial space standards or requirements it's just a terminology update similar to the last one next slide Yes, this is the list of all the places where affordable dwelling unit was changed to price restricted dwelling unit. On the left and on the right is a list of other places in Somerville's code where the term commercial space existed, and where it was replaced with commercial unit or units. Next slide please And with that, that's all I have. Ready for questions and comments.

Thank you very much. Are there questions or comments from colleagues before we open the public comments? Clingan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know this is kind of split in hairs but price makes me think that it's being bought or sold versus cost restricted is like the cost to the potential tenant I'm assuming you guys, you all considered the word cost instead of price. Right? Through you Mr. Chair

Through the chair, a lot of different terminology was considered. I don't remember the exact reasoning behind why cost was not chosen. That's maybe something we could come back to you with an answer on next time.

Yeah, like I said, I mean it's splitting hairs through Mr. Sherrod's splitting hair I see Director Bartman has his hand up if you want to weigh in

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I do remember correctly the chair of the housing division identified that costs actually extend beyond the actual price of the unit itself there's lots of costs that go into housing Beyond the rent or mortgage payment. So we did actually explore that term, cost-restricted dwelling unit and that was the response. The price is more reflective of the unit itself rather than the full cost Habitation in a specific location. So there was kind of some feedback related to that term, but we did explore I think 5 to 10 different options. Courtney, maybe I'm overestimating but there was a number that we looked at and debated back and forth

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I figured you probably ran the gamut through the words. I just wanted to make sure because again it invokes in me a certain type of thinking but it's for these documents. I don't think it's really all that big of a deal

Thank you very much, Counselor. Okay, with that let's open up the public comments. Members of the public wishing to speak on this please use the raise hand function in Zoom and keep your comments to two minutes and I ask that you introduce yourself and give your address or your affiliation. is there anyone here tonight wishing to speak on this item going once Going twice. All right, we will close the public hearing tonight and we will keep the written comment period for this the same as the others tonight October 30th that's Friday So members of the public have a while to send in public comment on everything that we've discussed here tonight. And you can do that by emailing publiccomments at somervillema.gov.

So to the clerk, all of these items will remain in committee. I want to thank everyone from the public and colleagues for being here tonight and the administration for the presentations Seeing no further items before the committee, let's call the roll on adjournment. Should we let the planning board adjourn first? Will they be trapped forever if we adjourn

Mr. Chair, we do have a number of other items in the planning board so if we could quickly adjourn first I'd be grateful Of course please I move to adjourn the joint hearing so that we can reconvene our planning board meeting Seconded by Johan. Alvaro, can you please call the roll for us?

Johan Habib Aye Luc Schuster Aye Carly Cooper Aye Michael McNeely. Hi. Amelia Aboff.

Hi, thank you so much have a great evening.

Thank you all. All right and then on adjournment for the Land Use Committee.

And on adjournement Councillor Davis. Clingan.

Yes.

Councilor Sait? Yes. Councillor McLaughlin?

Yes!

Councilor Ewen-Campen? Yes, we are adjourned.

Excellent thank you all appreciate it see you soon have a good weekend