[Speaker 7] (0:41 - 3:10) . . [Speaker 6] (4:38 - 8:08) . . . [Speaker 1] (9:14 - 10:18) . . . . [Speaker 12] (10:31 - 10:43) . . . . . Can you go to the next slide? [Speaker 1] (10:51 - 23:47) One second. There we go. Okay. All right. So this evening we are going to be reviewing the four articles. They are the MBTA community zoning. A liquor establishment Amendment. Nonconforming single and two family structures. Manager and ADU bylaw update. And then, finally, we'll close out by just kind of an overview of what the timeline is in order to get these bylaws approved, reviewed, and brought to town meeting for their consideration for approval. So to start with is the major zoning article, which is the MBTA Community Zoning. Based on the 2021 Mass General Law Legislature, they passed Section 3A of the Zoning Enabling Act, Chapter 40A. And in that, in Section 3, essentially what's required is that communities that are served by the MBTA, which is through commuter rail, subway, or bus lines, that you have to have zoning in place that will allow for multifamily housing to be developed. Just like all zoning, it is simply the regulation that permits and sets the requirements. It does not dictate nor mandate the creation of housing. It simply is creating the tool that would allow for it. So the purpose of this is to encourage the creation of more housing options and locations that are accessible to public transit. So what exactly is the requirement? The requirement is that the communities that are served by the MBTA, and specifically for Swampscott, we're considered a commuter rail station community because we do have a commuter station within the community. And so that means that there are certain requirements that are tied to being a commuter rail station community. The density within the MBTA zoning must be at least a minimum 15 units per acre by right, meaning that your zoning that you create has to allow at least 15 units per acre. On top of that, there is a requirement that based on the number of housing units that the community had in 2020, a certain percentage must be developed as a capacity or there must be an ability to build a certain percentage of that total housing unit within the overlay of the, or within the MBTA zoning. So based on our 2020 housing count, we are required to create a capacity of 954 units in the proposed zoning overlay. We're creating through our district or the bylaw that's been provided 1,148 capacity. Again, it's the allowance of the ability to feed it. So it does meet that requirement. The area of your district based on the size of Swampscott and the fact that we're a commuter rail station has to be at least 20 acres. We were able to include 44.6 acres. And I'll go into a little more detail where the size of the land and the unit count all play in because it all plays into the density and the massing of a structure that could be built. As far as the unit capacity, there is a requirement that 20% of the unit capacity of the community has to be within a half mile of that train station. So based on our 954 units that were required to have for unit capacity, we need 191 unit capacity within a half mile of the train station. We're able to actually, based on the 35 unit density requirement, are able to hit 196. So we meet that 20% requirement. And then it also requires that 20% of the land area has to be within that train depot area and we're able to achieve 33%. So 33% of the land area that we're zoning for this is within 100, or 100, within a half mile of the train station. Because we are a commuter rail station as well, we are required to have the adoption of the bylaw in place by the end of 2024. We're currently on target for meeting that requirement. So what are the two areas, where are we proposing the overlays? This has been brought to the select board in November, I believe. They are two areas. One, the first area is the area closest to the train station and we're calling it the Essex Street overlay. It is the area on the opposite side of the high school. It starts on the southwest side where Elm Place is being built, all the way to the north end just before the bridge over the railroad tracks. And then the other portion is the Vinnin Square overlay area and that is the portion of Vinnin Square, the residential multifamily portion that is just to the southwest of Vinnin Square shopping mall, shopping district, which includes Crown Point, Vantage Point, Terrace, thank you, Avery and the Landing. So all of those apartments and condos are part of this particular overlay zone. So what does the proposed bylaw do? So I just kind of want to give an idea or give an overview on what the bylaw as written does for the community. It's bringing Swampscott into compliance of Section 3A. It's applying an overlay to only business zoned properties, meaning properties that already are zoned for multifamily development, either by right or by special permit. So it's not the town, what the town is not proposing overlaying this on residential properties where we're upzoning. We're not, we don't have to do any upzoning. We're actually applying it on properties that were already zoned for multifamily. It makes the multifamily development as of right, meaning it doesn't require a special permit for the use. It may require a special permit for a dimension or whatnot, but as far as the use is concerned, it's by right, which is the requirement from the state. It encourages mixed use development, which means inclusion of a business on business use on the ground floor. It doesn't require it, but it does encourage it. This is helpful because it does help to support our tax base since we do have a split tax base. It means that that commercial portion would be taxed at the commercial rate rather than Oh, okay. And then it also continues compliance of the inclusionary zoning bylaw. So the town does have an inclusionary zoning of a certain size or more, which essentially is, I want to say eight units or more. It requires 10, 10 units or more. It requires 10% of the development to be affordable housing. This bylaw continues that. It's not exempting the inclusionary requirement. It does limit it at 10% because the state only allows 10% so that you don't make it cost prohibitive to do a development, but it does allow us to still require affordable housing within any new development within the overlay. And then finally, it establishes a maximum density by acre. So that's dwelling units per acre. We actually don't use that metric or that dimensional restriction in our underlying zoning in general. By doing this, we're actually setting a ceiling. We're setting a limit where in the underlying zone, we actually don't have a limit. So we're setting limit in the Vinan Square overlay to 25 units per acre and in the Essex Street, 35 units per acre. Again, we're finally setting a ceiling where we don't have it generally. I'll get to questions at the end, but yeah, you certainly keep that, yeah. So what does it not do? The zoning amendment does not apply the overlay to any residential zone property. So again, we're not upzoning any residential zone properties. We're only applying this to business zones where multifamily is already allowed. The bylaw doesn't modify any dimensional requirements. All the existing dimensional requirements of the underlying properties, so whether if it's a B2 district like across from the high school or B3 or B4, the height restrictions, the setback restrictions, the open space requirements are all the same. We're not reducing them. We're not allowing a taller building. All of those same dimensional requirements stay exactly the same. It does not make multifamily more restrictive than anywhere else in the town where multifamily is allowed. That is a requirement of the state. The state says in these zoning districts that you create for the MBTA zoning, you can't make it harder to do multifamily here where if they did it somewhere else in the town, just within the town, it would be easier. So we can't add additional layers of requirements or restrictions if it doesn't already apply somewhere else in the business district. This is just an overview of what the dimensional requirements are in the underlying zoning, so the zoning that's already on the property. Again, we're not modifying this, but this gives you an idea of what's already allowed anyways so you understand we're not modifying it and understand that any development that would be developed across from the high school, let's say, it would only be allowed at three stories. They couldn't go taller than three stories. It has to be at least a lot size of 10,000 square feet. It has to have at least, or it can't be more than 30% of building coverage on the lot. All of these stay exactly the same. Same for the business districts in the Vennon Square, the B3 and B4. All of those height restrictions in the B3 portion, it's restricted to two and a half stories. In the B4 district, it's restricted to five stories. It's allowed at seven if it's 175 feet from the setback. All of these are the existing already on the property, and we're not touching those with the overlay district. What we are adding for a dimensional requirement is the requirement from the state where we have to at least set a maximum dwelling unit per acre. Again, this is just setting a ceiling on the number of units that can be developed per acre. If they can't fit it within the height restriction and the setback requirement, and they can only fit 20 units on that one acre, then they can only fit 20 units on that one acre. The law will say 35, but what they can actually build is going to be dependent on the dimensional requirements and whether they merge additional lots to try to fit that in. What does that mean when you look at the development units per acre and the acreage of those zones? It's 196 units within the Essex Street, and it's 952 units in the Vennon Square overlay. Again, it's the number of units that could potentially be built or allowed within the entirety of those two districts. So the benefits of adoption mean that the town would be in compliance with the requirements of Section 3A. We'd remain eligible for state grants and funding. The town does receive numerous grants, great projects that we're able to do. By being in compliance, we would be continued to be eligible for those grants and funding options. It encourages a greater variety of housing options, whether that be townhomes, apartments, condos. It does not require any of those, but it allows for those, greater variety, supports the local businesses because you're creating residential base that then has the ability to then interact with those businesses. It's creating affordable workforce housing. It helps to create additional units that can count towards the town's subsidized housing inventory. Any of the units that are affordable then count towards our SHI. The town, like all communities in Massachusetts, is required to have at least 10% of all of your units at an affordable rate, and so this helps us to get to that 10% requirement. So, now I want to take some questions on the MBTA zoning. We'll take in-person and online, so Liz, if you don't mind taking, yeah, going to the microphone, sorry. [Speaker 3] (23:53 - 24:44) Hi, Elizabeth Pappalardo, Precinct 3, I have a couple of questions, and I might have more once I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. So, you said something about whether they merge additional lots would depend on if we get to that maximum amount, so if somebody owns this lot and they also own this lot, they can merge so we may get to that maximum amount, correct? So, based on last year's zoning for Vennon Square, right, in May 2023, after we changed that, now this, is this replacing that? Is this in addition to that? [Speaker 2] (25:15 - 25:17) It looks like the mic died. [Speaker 1] (25:20 - 25:35) Okay, we're not applying this overlay over the B4 district of the shopping plaza. That was done, that's a separate, we're applying the overlay on the B3 and B4 that's outside of the shopping plaza where the condos and the apartments are. [Speaker 3] (25:36 - 25:43) And so that area was newly acquired, was that by the same person who owns the, wasn't there? [Speaker 1] (25:43 - 25:44) You're thinking of the shopping plaza. [Speaker 3] (25:45 - 25:46) Okay. [Speaker 1] (25:46 - 25:48) Again, that's not part of this overlay. [Speaker 3] (25:48 - 25:58) So are there owners, I'm just thinking about the merging, so the people who own, are there people that could possibly merge that own both of these? [Speaker 1] (25:58 - 26:27) No, not so much in this overlay district because you have the Crown Point condos, that's a condo association, it's harder for them to then acquire an adjacent property. You have an apartment complex, those properties would not likely merge. If anything, the merging of properties would likely happen on smaller lots in the Essex Street overlay across from the high school where like the gas station is, where the small professional office building is, the merging of those lots. [Speaker 3] (26:28 - 26:33) And who wrote these new proposed bylaws? [Speaker 1] (26:33 - 26:43) This actually follows the state model bylaw. That's catered to our specific bylaw, but it's based on the state model bylaw. [Speaker 3] (26:43 - 26:45) Did the zoning board write it or? [Speaker 1] (26:45 - 26:53) No, the zoning board is not a zoning bylaw, they are an appeals board. The planning board oversees our zoning bylaw. [Speaker 3] (26:57 - 27:00) Okay, so why are we going above the required amount? [Speaker 1] (27:01 - 28:08) Sure. So this relates to George's question. The required amount has two elements to it. It's both that you have to have, as far as a density requirement, a minimum of 15 units, but through that density you have to have a minimum capacity of 954 units. In order to, because of the height restrictions that we have and the setback restrictions, other than allowing a larger building, we applied the district of 44.6 acres, but it means that we have to do the units with 35 units in Essex and 25 in Vinnon Square, and it allows us to get those, get the number of units that we need, which is at least 954, we get 1148 within that tight area, otherwise we would have to zone additional properties outside the limited scope that we've proposed. So it's either do the limited scope or do a much broader scope in order to get to the amount of units that we need. [Speaker 3] (28:09 - 28:15) But we need 954 and you're at 1148, so to get to 954? [Speaker 1] (28:15 - 28:49) The main crux there is we really needed to get 191 units within the train station, which is Essex Street, so we needed 35 to at least get us to 191 within the Essex Street, which is across from the high school. And because the properties in the Vinnon Square area are so large, it just, the acreage of the properties that were did, it just provided us some buffer where we get some additional. Again, it's an allowance of units, it's not creating or building or mandating that number of units. [Speaker 3] (28:50 - 28:57) So we've got this new Vinnon Square zoning, right? And now you're adding a Vinnon Square overlay. [Speaker 1] (28:58 - 29:05) The MBTA overlay, correct. Outside of the shopping plaza. You're thinking of the shopping plaza overlay. [Speaker 3] (29:05 - 29:07) Well, they're really close to each other though, right? [Speaker 1] (29:07 - 29:09) They're right adjacent to one another, exactly. [Speaker 3] (29:09 - 29:22) So what's to stop the owner of the first portion from purchasing areas in this new proposed area and then we're hitting 1148? [Speaker 1] (29:23 - 30:24) Terrain. I'll show the map again. So if you recall, Crown Point is way up on a hill above the Chinese restaurant building, and then the Swampscott Mall, where the stop and shop is, that's all wetlands that are separate these two properties, so they would not. And if you were to merge the properties, the portion that's in the overlay is what would be able to be developed under the overlay requirements, and the portion of land that's under the B4 standard Vinnon Square zoning, that would have to be developed under those requirements. You don't get to expand the allowance from this zone into that property just because you merged the properties. The portion of the property would still be whatever was zoned, and it's based on the lines that we've drawn in. You would only merge lots within the zone itself. The microphone. Yeah. [Speaker 5] (30:26 - 30:28) So I guess the stop and shop isn't in the overlay? [Speaker 1] (30:28 - 30:34) Correct. Because it's already in the B4 Vinnon Square. It's not part of this overlay. [Speaker 5] (30:34 - 30:37) And how much do we get from grants, do we know? [Speaker 12] (30:40 - 30:40) Don't. [Speaker 5] (30:40 - 30:43) Like $100,000, $5 million? [Speaker 11] (30:46 - 30:57) It really depends on the year and the type of projects that we apply for. So we don't have an amount. But that also includes, don't forget, we have school department, police department, fire department. [Speaker 6] (30:57 - 30:57) All those. [Speaker 11] (30:57 - 31:01) It's all state grants that this would apply to. [Speaker 5] (31:03 - 31:13) And have we talked to abutters to the train station about putting a 15-unit zoning within there? 15-unit per acre zoning within that area? Was that considered? [Speaker 1] (31:13 - 31:49) No. It was not considered because of the fact that we want to, at present, do zoning where multifamily is currently allowed. By the train station, you have a very limited where, like, the restaurant is, and then on the other side of the street where those warehouses are, it's just those limited pieces. That could certainly be considered down the road. At present, though, it made more sense to do it on these business properties, and they're still considered within the required distance of the train depot. [Speaker 5] (31:50 - 31:58) And will the project across from the high school count in this numbers that we're putting up, or is that going to be additional to the high school numbers? [Speaker 1] (31:58 - 32:13) So remember, this is just zoning. This isn't like our SHI has a requirement that we have to. So it's not like we need to achieve building those units. We just have to have zoning in place that allows for building up to that unit. [Speaker 5] (32:13 - 32:21) Can we use those units that are being built, already being built, to count towards the number we have to hit for what? [Speaker 1] (32:21 - 32:35) Again, we're not trying to hit anything other than to allow it, because we also have all of these units. It's not like we're trying to say, okay, we've already built 700 units here, and we need 960. You're going to have to build another. It doesn't play into it. [Speaker 5] (32:35 - 32:47) I understand, but if we said across from the high school it was going to be 20 units, would the units that we've already been building count to the number that we have to hit that they're going to be within a half mile of the train station? [Speaker 1] (32:51 - 33:43) Any new development. The numbers don't count towards the capacity, because you could certainly, what it has to do is you have to provide the zoning bylaw allows for a capacity. It doesn't say, okay, now achieve said capacity. That is not what you're doing at all. So it doesn't matter if you then have another project that wants to propose 20 units, and another project that proposes 50 units, and all of a sudden we're at 196. That's not what we're trying to achieve. It's what any new development that comes in, based on the acreage of the property that they want to develop on, they would then be limited based on the development unit. So let's say they have one and a half acres. They could do one and a half times 35 units, so long as they meet it within the height restriction and the setback requirement. Not necessarily trying to get to the total 196. [Speaker 5] (33:44 - 33:45) And this is all going to be by right? [Speaker 1] (33:45 - 33:58) Correct. The use will be by right. If needed, if they need any special permits for dimensional parking, they would still be required to get those special permits. [Speaker 5] (33:58 - 34:01) But the number of units they can put in per acre is going to be by right? [Speaker 1] (34:01 - 34:05) Correct. As long, again, as long as they can fit it within the development envelope. [Speaker 5] (34:05 - 34:32) No, but there's a lot of commercial areas across from the high school that could be redeveloped. That could be redeveloped and put a lot of residential units where it just seems backwards. I mean, I understand why we're doing it from a regulatory perspective to put the higher density units in a higher density area that already has a lot of people. I mean, it would make more sense to put the more density over at the Vineyard Square Overlake, but that's a problem because it's not within a half mile. [Speaker 1] (34:32 - 34:43) The idea is that you're utilizing the fact that you have public transit, which is why you do greater density because you can then use the public transit services as opposed to all the additional vehicles. [Speaker 5] (34:45 - 35:01) Are there going to be relief to parking restrictions in the area around the high school because of the fact that if they want to get higher density, we'll allow them not to require more parking? [Speaker 1] (35:01 - 35:03) So the parking requirement stays the same. [Speaker 5] (35:04 - 35:05) 1.6 units or is it 6.6 units? [Speaker 1] (35:05 - 35:19) It's one and a half spaces per unit, but what we've done is we set that as a maximum and then they can do, it's essentially 75% of that requirement is your minimum, but that sets a minimum. [Speaker 5] (35:20 - 35:21) And that's a special permit or is that? [Speaker 1] (35:22 - 35:38) That's part of the actual bylaw allowance. It allows that, but they could seek a parking special permit if they needed to, but again, they would have to go through the traffic study to demonstrate that they could still meet the demand and the need in order to reduce that. [Speaker 5] (35:38 - 36:05) Because I know there was a lot of concern about the Elm Place because there's a lot of parking in the neighborhood and that overflow parking would end up flowing into the neighborhood and if you put even more units, you could potentially have even more parking issues and we're going to put this into place by right before you've even seen what that, I mean, could we delay this to see kind of what Elm Place does, has an impact on? [Speaker 1] (36:06 - 36:33) We have to have the bylaw finalized and adopted by the end of the calendar year, otherwise we fall out of compliance and then we fall out of the ability to get grants and funding. I would also point out that just for example, the landing on Paradise Road that has only one egress point has 184 units itself. That one property has 184 units. [Speaker 5] (36:33 - 36:35) I thought they had an emergency exit out the back. [Speaker 1] (36:35 - 36:54) Yes, that's an emergency exit, but it's closed off. My point is that the residents that live there have only one access point and it's 184 units. We have real world examples where a project of that scale of 196 and that's for this entire lane has one egress point. [Speaker 5] (36:54 - 37:02) And they only have what's 60 to 70% of that lot full, right? Like when you look at how many cars are in there on a regular basis. [Speaker 1] (37:02 - 37:06) Oh, I couldn't tell you, but I'm not sure, yeah. [Speaker 5] (37:07 - 37:22) Okay. And then it's just the whole thing with the restrictions. It's only 10% affordable, right? Correct. And do we know what rents would be on an affordable unit in there if it's a three bedroom? [Speaker 1] (37:22 - 37:31) Not off the top of my head. It's all based on the area median income. It's set by the statistical area and the area of the median income. [Speaker 5] (37:31 - 37:32) That's $110,000 or whatever it is? [Speaker 1] (37:33 - 37:35) I don't know off the top of my head. I'm sorry. [Speaker 5] (37:36 - 37:37) All right. [Speaker 12] (37:38 - 37:38) Thanks. Sorry. [Speaker 10] (37:41 - 38:01) Aaron. Hello. Aaron Burdoff, town meeting member. First wonderful presentation, so thank you for putting this together. Second question, we talked a lot about the capacity of those zoning units. Could you, do you have any details about the total number of housing units that are already in those two units? [Speaker 1] (38:01 - 39:01) Yeah. So in the Vidden Square overlay, the area that's highlighted here, there are just under 670 units already built there with significant land, but it's already 670 units. So that gives you a scale of what's already built and what the capacity would allow. Within the orange area, what's permitted and currently under construction or currently a residential unit within this area, 91 units. Part of Elm Place goes into residential zone properties that are outside of our overlay. So we took off that part of the building to count the units that are only actually within the overlay area. So it's 91 units here and 667 or about 670 for the Vidden Square. What was the capacity of it? 196 and 900 and... 952. 952. Sorry. [Speaker 12] (39:03 - 39:05) Do we have any online questions? [Speaker 9] (39:20 - 39:36) Hi, Mary. Hello. Thank you for the presentation. I was just wondering about the 10% affordable and why that was chosen. I think Elm Place is at 30, 40, 20? [Speaker 1] (39:36 - 39:37) It's around 25 or 30%. [Speaker 9] (39:37 - 39:41) Something. 10% seems low to me, so... [Speaker 1] (39:42 - 39:44) Yeah, I can certainly... [Speaker 9] (39:44 - 39:46) Just how did you come to that? [Speaker 1] (39:46 - 40:28) So it's based on the restriction from Section 3A. So Section 3A allows us to do 10%, require 10%. We can't go beyond that without doing a lengthy process with the state to evaluate our current need and if we actually have the ability to do that without inhibiting that multifamily development. So currently our plan is to do the 10% and then we could next year do that longer study with the state and see if we can increase that requirement. At present, in order to make sure that we at least can comply with the Mass General Law by the end of this year, we're meeting that standard of 10%. [Speaker 9] (40:28 - 40:33) Given the urgency about affordable housing, I think that should be set as a priority. [Speaker 1] (40:34 - 40:34) Yes. [Speaker 9] (40:34 - 40:34) Thank you. [Speaker 1] (40:36 - 44:28) Are there any other questions on the MBTA zoning amendment? Do we have any online? All right. I'm going to go through the other three. We'll ask questions at the end of each one of those. If you have follow-up questions at the very end, I'm happy to answer follow-up questions that you might think about. All right. So liquor establishments. Our current bylaw has a section called Section 4410. That particular section states that garages, service stations, liquor establishments, and large garages cannot be located or have their primary entrance to the building within 200 feet of any park, school, church, or library. Unfortunately, this bylaw has multiple intents that are a little bit older in their intention. The proposal here, though, is to simply remove any reference to liquor establishments but keep the rest of the bylaw in place, that particular section in place, not touching the rest of it. So why? Here's a perfect example. The Humphrey Street downtown business core are the colored properties. All of these colored properties are currently zoned business properties, which means there are properties that are allowed by zoning to have a restaurant, to have a cafe, to have a store that could sell alcohol. However, because of the church and parks that we have, we have a park at this location and Linscott Park, those parks mean more than half of the Humphrey Street core cannot have a liquor establishment, meaning a restaurant with a full liquor license. The community has a number of full liquor licenses available, but we can't allow it in our primary core. Only these, what, four or five properties at the very end of Humphrey before you get to Fisherman's Beach, those are outside of the 200-foot limit. They would be the only ones that would be able to have a liquor license for a restaurant establishment. This is only Humphrey Street. There's other business districts that we have, such as in Vinning Square, over by the train station, even across from the high school right now, because of Jackson Park, Jackson Park is the only one that has a full liquor license. So this amendment is to remove that restriction because we do have plenty of instances where restaurants do want to open up, or because they were grandfathered in, they do offer that alcohol at those restaurants, or they solicit and request a special permit from the zoning board, generally, though, it's restricted to beer and wine, and they can't do the full liquor because of the current bylaw. So this is just to remove that. What it does is it keeps the remainder of the bylaw intact, meaning the environmental impacts of gas stations, service stations, because of those environmental impacts, they should not be located near parks, playgrounds, schools. So that's why we don't want to touch any of the rest of that bylaw. It's just the liquor establishments. Any questions on that bylaw amendment? Anything online? Sorry. Just want to make sure we don't miss people online. Okay. I'm going to pass this one over to Marissa. Essentially, we're now going to talk about the amendment that pertains to non-conforming single and two-family structures. [Speaker 2] (44:39 - 50:37) So, we currently have a bylaw, a section of our bylaw, section 2273, that governs the provisions regarding single and two-family non-conforming structures and or lots, actually. And this bylaw attempts to mimic the protections that are offered in Mass. General Law, Chapter 48, Section 6. Our current local bylaw supersedes the protections that are offered by the state. And this was brought to light a couple of years ago when we had one case before the Zoning Board of Appeals, where the board determined that relief could only be given a certain way, but the petitioner believed that the relief could be given a different way. So we sent out an opinion to our town council. Town council responded back, saying the language in your bylaw goes too far. You limit the protections that are offered by the state. Here is some case law that can help you make a decision based on the protections that the state offers. And so since then, our Zoning Board of Appeals has gone on to provide relief to petitioners with single and two-family non-conforming structures or lots in accordance with the statutes that are in the state's Section 6. Should they continue providing relief based on the bylaws in our local bylaws that are written now, any of those decisions could be overturned on appeal. So what we're doing right now is just simply looking to modify our language to bring it in compliance with the state. So I guess to bring it into a little more context, and the reason why this is important is because about 90% of the lots in Swampscott are non-conforming, and a lot of those structures on those lots are non-conforming. And a non-conforming lot means that you do not meet the minimum requirements for frontage and or lot area. So lot area and frontage requirements are set out by districts, and if your lot in particular does not comply with either one of those metrics, then you are non-conforming. So if you are required to have 80 feet of frontage in your zoning district, but you only have 60 feet, you are non-conforming. If your minimum lot area is supposed to be 20,000 feet, but you only have 6,200 square feet, you are non-conforming. And then a non-conforming structure could be anything that does not comply dimensionally. So if your structure is so close to the property line that you are just two feet away from your neighbor's property line, you are non-conforming. The minimum side yard setback in most districts is 7.5 feet. 20 feet from the rear, 20 feet from the front, 35 feet in height, etc., etc. So any of those structures or lots right now are what we consider pre-existing, non-conforming, and so we are looking to amend the bylaws that govern the protections to those grandfathered lots. And so this is our lengthy bylaw, as it is right now. Now this bylaw, the amendment to this bylaw is sort of two-fold. The first part is more of a policy change, and the second part of it is just cleaning up that language where we have been told by town council that we are not in compliance with the state provisions. Like I said, this is our bylaw as it currently exists. And section, what is it? Section number 1, A1, is the section that allows our building commissioner to make a determination as to whether an addition can be constructed by right. I don't know, 99.9% of the time it gets deferred to the Zoning Board of Appeals for relief because of this one little rule where if you add more than 15% to your existing gross square footage, you need relief from the Zoning Board of Appeals. That's not hard, that's not an art, that is not a hard threshold to cross in Swampscott, adding 15%. If you wanted to add like on a little mud room, that could trigger that 15% threshold and then you've got to go to the ZBA and have them okay it. So the language that we are looking to instead incorporate into our bylaw is getting rid of that 15% value, getting rid of the one-third value that says if the total cost of your construction is to exceed one-third the assessed value of the structure, then it needs a Zoning Board of Appeals special permit. We are looking to just give the building commissioner a clear cut criteria by which he can allow somebody to build an addition as of right. And all it's saying is that in the case where you have a non-conforming structure on a non-conforming lot, if your addition is to be dimensionally compliant, so if you're going to meet that 7 1⁄2 foot side setback, 20 foot rear setback, 35 feet in height and 2 1⁄2 stories, you can build that addition by right. You do not need additional relief from the Zoning Board of Appeals. What we will keep in place that is in place already is if you are looking to extend, alter, or change what we call a pre-existing non-conformity, then that gets deferred to the Zoning Board of Appeals as it is practiced right now. And then the Section B is where we are looking to clean up the language a little bit just to say that whereas right now a dimensional special permit would be issued by the Zoning Board of Appeals for relief to a pre-existing non-conformity, they will be making what is called a Section 6 finding. And that is in accordance with the state statute. Any questions about that? [Speaker 5] (50:39 - 50:53) Yeah, George Potts, District 4. Did you give any consideration to not, if you're not changing the footprint of the house, like if you're building on the current footprint, not allowing the building, is that already allowed by right? [Speaker 2] (50:53 - 50:56) Meaning if you were to tear down and rebuild within the existing footprint? [Speaker 5] (50:56 - 50:58) No, you just keep your current footprint, you're going to go up. [Speaker 2] (50:59 - 51:21) Oh, so that depends on if there is a pre-existing non-conformity, like if you have a side yard set back that's three feet away, yes, that would still get deferred to the Zoning Board of Appeals. It would be up to them to determine whether that is considered an extension of a non-conformity and whether said extension is more detrimental than what is currently existing. [Speaker 5] (51:21 - 51:52) And if there was somebody who has, like puts a, something like a garage or a shed and then incorporates that into the house but it's all conforming other than that, but you know, but the lot itself is not, so the shed was put someplace else which was conforming, but now they're going to use that and make that part of their house or like a deck or something, and now they're going to build on that deck and that's conforming, but... [Speaker 2] (51:53 - 51:55) Say that again, I'm not sure that I follow that. [Speaker 5] (51:56 - 51:58) So, they were given relief to put the deck on. [Speaker 2] (51:59 - 51:59) Yep. [Speaker 5] (51:59 - 52:15) And now they want to use that place to make that part of their addition, even though initially it was not part of the original, you know, they were given relief to build the deck, but now they want to make the deck part of their house. Does that make sense? [Speaker 2] (52:15 - 52:17) So, they want to cover it essentially. [Speaker 5] (52:17 - 52:19) Yeah, and then make it living space. [Speaker 2] (52:20 - 52:21) If the deck is... [Speaker 5] (52:21 - 52:25) And it's less than the 15% and it's less than 800 square feet. [Speaker 2] (52:25 - 52:32) So, if the deck is a conforming deck, then yes, cover it and that the building commissioner would be able to make the determination that... [Speaker 1] (52:34 - 52:42) What he's getting at is when an accessory structure or a deck, they don't have the same set of requirements of a enclosed or covered... [Speaker 11] (52:42 - 52:43) Well, that's true too, yeah. [Speaker 1] (52:43 - 52:59) So, I think that would actually trigger that. It is not a non-conforming because you're turning it from a non-livable space into a livable space that now falls under the primary structure's restrictions. It's now going to be a non-conforming. Great, that's it. Thank you. [Speaker 11] (52:59 - 53:00) Yeah, thank you. [Speaker 1] (53:05 - 53:06) Any other questions? [Speaker 2] (53:13 - 53:14) Yeah, sure. [Speaker 3] (53:18 - 53:24) So, this is the ADU... No, that's what you're going to do next. [Speaker 2] (53:24 - 53:25) That's the next one, yeah. [Speaker 3] (53:26 - 53:30) Okay. So, does this impact the ADU at all? [Speaker 2] (53:31 - 54:52) I will say this bylaw does extend to accessory structures. It offers those same protections to accessory structures. The use of those structures is not governed by this section. To give you an example though, a couple months ago, a petition was filed before the Zoning Board of Appeals to tear down a pre-existing detached garage and rebuild it in the exact same footprint that it was in, a non-conforming footprint with the goal of converting that garage into an accessory dwelling unit. So, they had to... Because the garage is in a non-conforming location with respect to the side property line and the rear property line, they needed permission from the Zoning Board of Appeals to be able to tear down and rebuild it to its exact dimensions. And the Zoning Board gave them the permission to do that. This bylaw wouldn't change that because it's a non-conforming structure. Anybody looking to do the same thing would still have to come before the Zoning Board of Appeals to seek that same relief. But with respect to its being used as an accessory dwelling unit, the Zoning Board has no jurisdiction over that any longer. So, they were simply given the permission to tear down and rebuild and that was all the ZBA was concerned with. So, the ADU aspect of it is outside of that. [Speaker 3] (54:55 - 55:04) So, assuming that this bylaw had been passed before that party came and asked for that relief, how would that be different? [Speaker 2] (55:04 - 55:45) It wouldn't have changed because the garage is still in a non-conforming location. So, basically anytime you are going to modify something that is non-conforming, like a structure that is non-conforming, you come to the building commissioner first and you will be deferred to the Zoning Board of Appeals. So, non-conforming meaning you've got a garage right here and it sits just at your fence on the side and on the rear. If you want permission to extend that or alter that or change that in any way, then you need to seek relief from the Zoning Board of Appeals. [Speaker 3] (55:46 - 55:47) But now you won't need to. [Speaker 2] (55:47 - 57:10) No, no. You will still need to. The only exception, and that's these three criteria right here, is if you have a principal structure and even if it is non-conforming, if you are looking to make a conforming addition, to give you another example, we just saw recently before the Board of Appeals a couple months ago, 14 Norfolk Ave. They were non-conforming in lot area. I forget what, I think they are A2 residential or A3 and they needed a minimum 20,000 square foot lot and they had maybe 12,000. I forget the dimensions to be honest. But they were non-conforming in lot area. They wanted to add on a two-story addition to the back to allow for a greater kitchen and then living space up top. The addition itself was completely compliant. They met the side setback. They were still set back more than 20 feet from the rear. They met the height requirement. Under the current bylaw, they still had to come before the Zoning Board of Appeals to get that relief because the lot is non-conforming. With the change that we are looking to make, this is an instance where the building commissioner would say, no, your addition is compliant. You are meeting all of the setbacks. I can give you the go-ahead to do that by right. [Speaker 3] (57:10 - 57:28) So can you explain the change in policy rationale? Why have we changed from the, what was the policy rationale for the old bylaw regarding this size lot? And what is the policy rationale now in changing it? [Speaker 2] (57:28 - 59:52) Sure. So with respect to the current bylaw that has all this language in here, it says, there has been no alteration, extension, reconstruction, or structural change to the exterior within the past five years. And the existing structure complies with all current setback, open space, lot coverage, building height requirements. It laid out all these criteria. I mean, I can't speak to the policy, the rationale for that policy when this version of the bylaw was adopted. I wasn't here. I don't know if you were here. Yeah. So it's hard for us to infer what might have been the rationale behind that. However, it is, it's just very dense language. And we're looking to make it more clear cut. And we're looking to establish criteria that, you know, given whoever the building commissioner is right now or down the road, they'll be able to look at these three criteria and say, yeah, I can allow you to do this by right. And we're just looking to make it more simple and make it compliant with what is written in the state provisions. This is, this is actually what the city of Salem has written in their bylaw as well. And, you know, we spoke with town council and town council even gave us the opportunity to allow the building commissioner to have the jurisdiction to allow certain nonconforming extensions by right. But we said no, because that's really a discretionary decision. And we think that that should be left up to the board of appeals because that, you know, the interpretation could change down the line. What one building commissioner might see as a simple extension of a nonconformity, somebody, a different building commissioner might say, no, I don't see that as an extension of a nonconformity, I think. And whereas the previous building commissioner would say, I think you should go to the ZBA. The other one might say, no, I think you can do it. So these are clear cut parameters and it's simple and it eliminates and we're, you know, The reality of the situation, though, is that the majority of structural changes for Lots and Swampscut will still have to come before the board of appeals. It's really just that one instance where you are making a conforming addition that the building commissioner can say, yes, that can be done by right. [Speaker 3] (59:54 - 59:57) And what year was the old bylaw written? [Speaker 2] (59:58 - 1:00:00) Oh, gosh, I wouldn't have the. [Speaker 1] (1:00:00 - 1:00:06) We have to go back to all the versions and see when that version was first put in place. [Speaker 3] (1:00:07 - 1:00:27) And so the policy rationale is just to make things simpler, or is it to allow for the town to become more dense? Like, I'm just trying to understand what is the why before did we want it one way? And now you're saying that's too, too complicated. And now we want to like what changed? [Speaker 1] (1:00:27 - 1:02:06) So if you read through the criteria that's here, there are so many different layers to the building inspector having to verify, such as is it more than a third of the assessed? Is does it exceed one third of the assessed cost of the existing structure? So is your is the construction of your addition going to be more than one third of your assessed value? Is it more than an increase of 15 percent of the existing structure? It was all of these different elements that at any one point, once one of those fell off as a problem, the building inspector has to force it to the ZBA. The problem was for a lot of the properties in town, again, only single and two-family properties this is applying to, where they were pre-existing. They were built well before we even put the zoning bylaw in place, which was in the 1920s, based on the Enabling Act. A lot of the homes predated that, meaning a lot of those homes became noncompliant. So anytime somebody wanted to do a minor addition because they had another child and they wanted to add in a child's room, if their property happened to be nonconforming or the house was nonconforming because it didn't meet one of those setbacks, they then had to go through a lengthy process of going to the zoning board and that process simply to make an addition to their home in order to support their family. It really only pertains to single and two-family properties, and it's about allowing the building commissioner to make the determination so long as your addition conforms, meaning that it fits the dimensional restrictions of that property, you can get to it. If you can't meet those restrictions, you're going to the zoning board to ask for relief. [Speaker 3] (1:02:08 - 1:02:16) Does this add to the building commissioner? Are we still sharing a building commissioner with Marblehead? Yes. And does this add to their workload at all? [Speaker 1] (1:02:16 - 1:02:24) They already have to do these reviews anyways. Everything always starts at the building commissioner. All building permits have to start at the building commissioner. [Speaker 13] (1:02:24 - 1:02:25) Okay. Thank you. [Speaker 1] (1:02:26 - 1:02:26) Yep. [Speaker 2] (1:02:30 - 1:02:30) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:02:45 - 1:02:47) Are there any other questions on the nonconforming? [Speaker 4] (1:02:55 - 1:03:09) So real quick, just for clarification. Thank you, Liz. That was really helpful. Is it just trying to clean up the language so that it's less squirrely for people to get around? Is that kind of like the ‑‑ yeah, I guess I do mean it kind of in a squirrely way. [Speaker 1] (1:03:10 - 1:03:39) Well, also, because we supersede, we go beyond the bounds of MGL, it means that if the zoning board were to use the existing bylaw and deny, somebody could appeal it, and because our bylaw goes beyond those bounds, we would have it remanded back to the zoning board and told, nope, you need to rehear that request because your bylaw went too far and is not allowed to be that far. [Speaker 4] (1:03:40 - 1:03:42) Okay. Can't get back to the states kind of a thing. [Speaker 6] (1:03:43 - 1:03:43) Yep. [Speaker 4] (1:03:44 - 1:03:51) And I just have one question back on the first ‑‑ or thought really back on the first thing, if there's no other questions on this, but I can wait. [Speaker 1] (1:03:52 - 1:03:57) You mean the first article? Yeah. We'll take that at the end. I want to get through all four articles. Yep. [Speaker 5] (1:04:01 - 1:04:34) George Potts again. I just want to also make people feel comfortable with this law. If somebody is going to be able to get something through the building inspector, they're going to do it that way. If they've got to go to the ZBA, they're going to ask for a lot more. So this actually might be a little bit better for neighborly, because this is the kind of thing that would come, and we would just check it because it's like, okay, it's on the same ‑‑ there's no setbacks being violated. It's going to go through. And as I said, if it's going to be ‑‑ if they're going to go, oh, we've got to go to ZBA, we're going to put everything on it. So just to make people feel comfortable. [Speaker 1] (1:04:38 - 1:08:01) Anything else on nonconforming? We'll jump to the last article then. Okay. The last article is a correction update to the ADU bylaw. In the April ‑‑ or April, the May town meeting last year, we revised the accessory apartment bylaw to modernize it and make it an accessory dwelling unit bylaw. That did pass that town meeting. The amendment that was demonstrated or provided in the booklet left off one item that was intended to be removed in the list of design standards for accessory dwelling units. Because it wasn't shown in the warrant with a strikethrough, the AG wouldn't allow us to remove it, even though it actually does not relate at all any longer to the bylaw, because the Board of Appeals is not part of the process. It's also not an AA any longer. It's an ADU. It was intended to be stricken. We just didn't show it with a strikethrough, so this is essentially a correction, but we can't call it a clerical correction because it wasn't even shown. So it's simply to remove this last bullet point, which isn't enforceable because the Board's not even part of the process. Any questions on that one? Do we have any online? Sorry. All right. So before I go back to other questions, I'm just going to quickly show what the timeline is for zoning bylaw adoption. So essentially tonight we're doing the public information session on the zoning articles, the zoning bylaw articles. The MBTA communities bylaw does have to go to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities as part of their review, so that'll be submitted in April. It is simply for them to say, yes, the bylaw that you're planning to bring to your town meeting is in compliance or not. At the Planning Board hearing on April 29th is the legal required hearing in order to review all four of those articles and hear any public comments on those. Annual town meeting is on May 20th. After May town meeting, in May, June, we'll submit through the town clerk any of the articles that are approved, and they will go to the Attorney General. In the summer, we would get the decision from the Executive Office on the MBTA zoning, and in August, September, typically we hear from the Attorney General on zoning bylaw amendments. It always depends on how many articles commonwealth-wide the AG has to review or their office has to review, but that's the general timeline. But otherwise, we do have a page on the website that provides all the information about the schedule, links to the current drafts of each article. They will be updated as we revise them based on town council feedback, planning board revisions prior to finalizing it for the town warrant. Once it goes into the warrant, you'll receive it as part of the warrant if you're a town meeting member, but the town warrant will be published on the website. You can use the URL, or you can call us. The page is accessible from the Planning Board page or the Community Development page, but I'm happy to take any other questions. [Speaker 4] (1:08:07 - 1:08:17) So can we just go back to the... MBTA? Yes, thank you. So it's really more of a comment, because I guess... [Speaker 1] (1:08:17 - 1:08:19) Is there a particular slide that you want me to go to? [Speaker 4] (1:08:20 - 1:08:21) The color one. [Speaker 1] (1:08:22 - 1:08:22) The map? [Speaker 4] (1:08:23 - 1:11:09) Yes, the map, thank you. Sorry. So really, it's just more... I guess a little explanation I'm looking for and a little bit of... just an expression of concern that the area that we are developing, or that we're changing, right, in terms of the overlay district, it is already an incredibly dense, you know, area. And I understand, you know, the connectivity to the commuter rail. But so, you know, you look at that area, or I certainly, when we moved to Spombscott, that was the area of Spombscott that we could afford, right? So those are the entry-level, you know, homes, condos, apartments, right? And so it just feels like the law. I know you guys didn't make it. But it's... And it's interest to do good. It has created, you know, these other consequential components, which is, let's put more density into the most, for our small town, into an area of town that's already very dense and may or may not actually improve or could decline. You know, some homeowners are ready properties if you're then just putting... if you're putting a very large structure next to, say, a single-family home, like Elm Place, right? You know, like, that is a very large structure in, you know, with some single-family homes right next to it. And then I think the other component is... what I always come back to is safety. We have a high school there. You know, the traffic... I've got two high school runners. And so when you see the whole team off running, I don't know how many stories they've come home with about near misses. And it's not just in the Essex Street area. It's all over town. But it's just more of a comment. I just feel like there has to be another way that we could expand it into other areas so that it's not just the Essex Street, Burl Street area by the train station that's just getting all the burden. It just feels very unfair. And we're such a small town that that mile gets you pretty far out. [Speaker 1] (1:11:10 - 1:11:10) Half mile. [Speaker 4] (1:11:11 - 1:11:12) It's just a half mile. [Speaker 1] (1:11:12 - 1:12:18) So it's a half mile. So that's the thing that you have to remember. We have to work within a half mile of the train depot. We're trying to do the least amount of impact to the area by applying this overlay to an area that's already zoned for multifamily. So guess what? Multifamily, because they're on place, is an example. Multifamily can already happen on these properties. We're simply saying, okay, fine. We have to do that. We're going to say that this is the area we're allowing it by right. And here's the density. It's what we were already doing. It's what we're already allowing by not actually negatively impacting within the neighborhood. We're still on the main corridor. It's on the opposite side of the street. We didn't want to touch the residential properties here. If anything, we can look at the current state of these properties, right? Do you feel that the current development of these properties is the highest and best use that gives a positive value to surrounding properties, positive economic value to those surrounding properties? Yes or no? [Speaker 4] (1:12:18 - 1:12:19) No, I see your point there. [Speaker 1] (1:12:20 - 1:12:51) So that's where we get this ability to redevelop. Elm Place is a great example. It's improving an underutilized lot and improving that with higher quality home. Even as affordable, it's still a higher quality structure and development. This is a way to get it. Again, we're not mandating. We're not requiring. And we aren't, the community is not required to build the units to the capacity. We just have to provide the ability within the law to do it. [Speaker 4] (1:12:51 - 1:13:09) Right. You know, obviously, everybody understands the need for residential building. But I also think that, you know, part of our, we've also just, as a region, you know, we've all Airbnb'd our way into this problem. [Speaker 1] (1:13:09 - 1:13:10) Yes. [Speaker 4] (1:13:10 - 1:13:13) And so that, I think, needs... [Speaker 1] (1:13:13 - 1:13:16) That's, yeah, a whole other can of worms. [Speaker 4] (1:13:16 - 1:13:31) Yes, yes. That's a whole bunch of squirrels. So I just feel that, you know, if you could just address the difference between the half a mile by the train and then the bus route, right? So like what... [Speaker 1] (1:13:31 - 1:14:19) So we are a commuter rail station. So by requirement, 20% of the unit capacity based on the 6,200 units of housing that we had town-wide as of 2020, we have a unit capacity that we have to achieve. And 20% of that unit capacity has to be within a half a mile of the train depot. So that 191 units of capacity has to be within. Therefore, the other area, it's outside of that half mile. We're still providing the greater allotment of the other remaining 80%. But we have to get 20% within the area. So either we do it by allowing up to 35 units per acre or we expand the area of implication, which means going into the single-family neighborhoods. [Speaker 4] (1:14:19 - 1:14:24) And so that's... You think that's not sellable, is that your thinking? [Speaker 1] (1:14:24 - 1:15:15) At present, I would not... I believe that the community can understand the idea of zoning and providing an overlay on property that's already zoned for multifamily as opposed to going and getting the community to upzone single two-family lots into multifamily lots. I think that is a discussion that we absolutely, we absolutely should have after we get into compliance. But the town should make sure it gets into compliance so that we do not inhibit our funding mechanism. Once we're in compliance, we can then look at ways to expand that, revise that, go into other areas. Absolutely. That should definitely be a discussion. And it needs to be a continued discussion, even after we do another update to it. You should always have conversations about how you are changing and what you want to change in the rules. [Speaker 4] (1:15:15 - 1:15:49) I guess the last thought is I'll just say, again, I think these things kind of fall to deaf ears, but I'm going to say them anyways, which is I hope that from a planning and zoning capacity, like, we are mindful of the density that this is now creating even more. And, you know, density maybe isn't even the right word. Congestion, you know, that these are potentially creating in an already quite congested area. And that's not to say that the need isn't there. It's just to say I think we just need to be mindful of... [Speaker 1] (1:15:50 - 1:15:56) I'll point to the fact that we have a real-world example when we first built 184 units. [Speaker 4] (1:15:56 - 1:15:56) Yeah, I appreciate you hearing that. [Speaker 1] (1:15:56 - 1:16:05) And there was a massive outcry about the amount of traffic that was going to be generated and all the vehicles that were going to come out. And students. It never happened. [Speaker 4] (1:16:05 - 1:16:05) And all the... [Speaker 1] (1:16:05 - 1:16:07) Yeah, exactly, all the students. [Speaker 4] (1:16:07 - 1:16:10) Guess what? And there really was a negligible effect in the schools. [Speaker 1] (1:16:10 - 1:16:24) Because what we perceive when we don't know, we always get worried. But we have actual examples here that disprove those concerns. There are plenty of studies that you could read as well. But we don't even have to look beyond our boundaries. [Speaker 4] (1:16:24 - 1:16:33) Right. You know, I'm going to push back a smidge and just say it is already pretty dense, you know, traffic-wise, through Essex Street and Borough Street. You know, there's already... [Speaker 1] (1:16:33 - 1:16:42) But that density of that traffic, guess what? That's flow-through traffic. That is not generated by the people living there. It's people actually commuting through because it's the main route. [Speaker 4] (1:16:42 - 1:16:47) Because every community around us is increasing their density. So, yeah. Okay, thank you. Yep. [Speaker 8] (1:16:51 - 1:17:14) I just kind of wanted to write a little bit on that, but more of clarity points. Because I know that you're saying that we're doing it already in areas where it's zoned to be multi-story. So, like, if we didn't have this overlay at all, people could still build however tall they wanted the buildings or whatever to be there, right? [Speaker 1] (1:17:14 - 1:18:09) No. The dimensional restriction is still the same. Okay. I'll show you that table again. We're not touching the height at all. Okay. This has nothing to do with the height restriction or the setback requirements. We're not touching any of them. So, in this area, it's a three-story limitation. And, of course... Sorry, the computer is slow. But, yeah. The height limits are the height limits currently. This doesn't modify that at all. That's what we wanted to emphasize is we're not saying that you're gonna get a massive structure. Because guess what? We're not changing the allowance of what we call the building envelope. It's the area of the property that you can actually build a structure on. That area is limited by your height and by your setback requirements, as well as the maximum building coverage. That's the percentage of the lot that can be covered by a building. Okay. [Speaker 8] (1:18:09 - 1:18:17) Yeah. So, it's essentially... If they wanted to build up or anything like that... [Speaker 1] (1:18:17 - 1:18:19) They have to do it within the bounds of the limit. [Speaker 8] (1:18:19 - 1:18:33) The existing limit. The existing limit, which just means that even if we weren't to go into compliance at the end of the year, these are still the things that are there, even if this passes or not passes. Correct. [Speaker 1] (1:18:41 - 1:19:57) It was a 40B project, a comprehensive permit project. So, Chapter 40B of MGL states that if your town, if your community, does not have 10% of its total unit count set aside or restricted for affordable housing, that you then must allow, through a comprehensive permit process, projects. They can still obviously go through the zoning board, and the zoning board can set restrictions, but it does mean that they can go beyond limits, such as setbacks, building height. If there was a maximum dwelling unit, they could do that, but we don't have that in the underlying zoning. Elm Place is 114 units total. So, that one structure has 114 units in total. But, yeah, it's a comprehensive permit. The Bertram House was a comprehensive permit. Was Pine Street? Machon was a comprehensive permit, and Pine Street, I believe, was. The permit that was originally done, was that a comp permit? No? Oh, it wasn't. Okay, it was by regular special permit. Okay. So, there are a few 40B projects in the community, but yes. [Speaker 3] (1:20:02 - 1:20:12) Okay, so, just another question. So, why didn't we do the MBTA zoning for the Vennon Square last year? [Speaker 1] (1:20:14 - 1:20:25) We hadn't gone through the entire process of the evaluation, and so that Vennon Square, again, is only the Swampscott Mall portion, not the area that we're talking about here. [Speaker 13] (1:20:25 - 1:20:28) But could we have made that the MBTA zoning? [Speaker 1] (1:20:28 - 1:21:17) You could extend it, but, again, a portion has to be within 20%. 20% of it needs to be within a half mile of the train station, so you'd still have to have an area within the train station radius. Oh, that's a good point. So, thank you. Within the Swampscott Mall zoning district, it is required that if you are removing commercial, you must replace with commercial and multifamily above it. In the MBTA zone, you cannot require commercial development. You can allow it, but it could mean that we would lose, if we applied it on the Swampscott Mall, that they could tear out the mall and only put in multifamily, and we'd suddenly lose all of that commercial tax rate. [Speaker 3] (1:21:18 - 1:21:22) But given that we were working with the developer, we probably could have, I mean, theoretically said... [Speaker 1] (1:21:22 - 1:21:24) Again, what the bylaw allows... [Speaker 3] (1:21:24 - 1:21:31) You will allow commercial space, and, you know, because we gave them so much leverage, it could have happened, correct? [Speaker 1] (1:21:31 - 1:21:49) No, definitely could say no, because if your bylaw allows for multifamily, guess what, that developer could, within six months, just say, you know what, I'm selling the property to somebody else, and they're not required to follow through. So no, you want your zoning bylaw to be the letter, not the agreement that you verbally had with somebody. [Speaker 3] (1:21:49 - 1:21:52) But that's kind of like what we have in Midden Square now. It's like a... [Speaker 1] (1:21:52 - 1:21:54) No, we have a zoning bylaw in place. [Speaker 3] (1:21:54 - 1:22:46) Okay. So, and I'm just learning about this, so it's not a political statement. I'm just curious. So you hear about some communities pushing back a little on this and saying, if the state wants to require this of towns, they need to offer more funding or help for things they're not offering help for, right? So, like schools, infrastructure, you know, things that the towns are now carrying the burden for, right? So have we thought about how that would impact us? Should we push back a little and say, hey, if we're going to put this zoning in, you know, is there any way to say we do agree that we want more help with certain things? I mean, can you push back a little? [Speaker 1] (1:22:46 - 1:23:35) No. So the reason I would say that wouldn't benefit us at all is those communities that are pushing back are also communities that are having to up-zone. We're not having to do that. So there's actually no reason. And again, we wouldn't necessarily need to ask for more school funding because guess what? This kind of multifamily development does not actually create the burden on the school systems that people perceive. There are demonstrated studies that show the multifamily does not increase the student count to great numbers, as people assume. So I would say no, that would not be, it would not benefit us once IOTA because we are not up-zoning. That's why we are taking this calculated measure to apply it in areas where we, because that multifamily development could happen anyways right now. By special permit, we're making it by right. [Speaker 13] (1:23:36 - 1:23:36) I see. [Speaker 3] (1:23:37 - 1:24:07) And that area right by the, that crosses over the train station by the high school, that crosses over the train tracks. You know that road that's just, if you are driving a child to school and you're trying to take a left off of, there's just an awful traffic area there. You know, whatever. It just seems like there's going to need to be, if you're adding in Vennon and over by the high school, right? That spot, the bridge that goes over the... [Speaker 1] (1:24:07 - 1:24:07) This bridge. [Speaker 3] (1:24:08 - 1:24:15) Yeah. Do you see any road work we're going to need done in that area? I mean, it's just so tight and coming out of Burrill. [Speaker 1] (1:24:16 - 1:24:53) So one of the things that is still required is all of these developments would still have to go through a site plan review through the planning board. So it doesn't mean they just go to the building permit and get a building permit. They do still have to go through planning board site plan review, which does actually require a traffic study. And through that traffic study, you're still able to determine, well, is the egress point that you want to do for your development in conflict with another road or a bridge location, the distance from those, what is the traffic load from your egress point, and how is that going to impact those site lines? So that is actually still part of the requirement as part of site plan review. [Speaker 3] (1:24:54 - 1:24:56) And, I mean, wouldn't you think there's going to be an issue there? [Speaker 1] (1:24:56 - 1:25:08) I wouldn't want to make an assumption until I saw what was proposed and what that development and that traffic study would actually demonstrate. It's hard to go and assume without having anything. [Speaker 3] (1:25:09 - 1:25:18) Is there any way to space it out so, like, you do one and then do the other later? Nope. No, you have to do the... [Speaker 1] (1:25:18 - 1:25:31) Yep. We have to meet the state requirement to allow for... to create the capacity of that 960-some-odd units, and we're achieving that by doing these two overlay zones. [Speaker 3] (1:25:31 - 1:25:59) And then do we have any power to say... So, say the Vennon Square overlay starts and somebody says, okay, I want to take advantage of this. I'd like to, you know, build some units. And then at the same time, we've got this other Vennon Square zoning, and we've got that project starting. Are we going to be able to say, you know what, we need construction here, and then this project's going to need to wait until that one's done to mitigate any of those impacts? [Speaker 1] (1:25:59 - 1:26:19) You can, based on construction access, certainly the building permit that's released a certain time of day when those things are happening. I want to point out, the area that we're doing the overlay zone is condos and apartments. The likelihood of them being redeveloped in the near future is very minimal. [Speaker 6] (1:26:19 - 1:26:19) Okay. [Speaker 1] (1:26:20 - 1:26:46) It's very minimal. You have a much greater likelihood that the commercial property that needs to be redeveloped will develop sooner. That could eventually lead to a desire by one of the apartment owners saying, you know what, we would have a... But then they have to work with their tenants to move them out, build a new structure. But that's a much larger project than the smaller, the commercial tenants where there's far fewer tenants in that area. [Speaker 3] (1:26:47 - 1:27:03) Yeah, so you're trying to keep it where we've already got apartments in Benin, and if there is a project, it's just not going to totally change the footprint of the neighborhood. Correct. And we're keeping it at just 10%. We can't go higher for the affordable. [Speaker 1] (1:27:03 - 1:27:33) At current, we're meeting where the state says if you do the MBTA zoning, you can require up to 10%. Okay. If you go through a process of validating, you can require more than that, but you have to go through that lengthier process, so that's what I was mentioning earlier, that at a minimum, we're going to do the state allowance of that 10% ceiling, that maximum, but we will afterwards go through the state process to evaluate can we require 20% instead. [Speaker 13] (1:27:33 - 1:27:34) Okay, thank you. [Speaker 1] (1:27:38 - 1:28:30) Any other questions? Do we have any more on the teams? Sorry. Okay. Again, feel free to keep checking the website. We'll update those articles as we get amendments or revisions from council, or if the planning board determines that they want to make some decisions or revisions, but otherwise, this will be and has been submitted to the board. The board, the select board, is opening their warrant on April 3rd, and they will be closing the warrant by April 17th. So just to give you some timing, and again, annual town meeting is May 20th. Okay. Thank you, everybody.