[Speaker 3] (0:06 - 5:04) Just to start things off, I believe there's a sign-in form going around the room. If you'd like to sign up and put your email address, you can get sent some more information after the panel this evening. To start things off, I just want to introduce myself. I'm going to be moderating this panel tonight. My name is Ted Dooley. I'm a resident here in town. I serve as the chairman of the planning board and a member of the Harbor Waterfront Advisory Committee. A little bit about the role that I play and why I'm here helping with this panel this evening. A number of years ago, the planning board in Swampscott went to town meeting to ask for approval to update our zoning bylaws to adopt a bylaw that would allow accessory dwelling units by right here in Swampscott. And that's something that town meeting was fortunate enough to have approved several years ago, which was a big leap and a big thing that we were very proud to have done. It's something we worked with Heidi and members of the community development office and folks around town to ensure that one of the goals of the 2025 Swampscott master plan, which was to adopt accessory dwelling units, was accomplished. And that's something we were very proud to have done back in 2022. More recently, I believe Governor Healy signed a new law that would permit accessory dwelling units by right across the state and single family housing districts. So this is definitely something that is catching on steam, not only here in Swampscott, but around the Commonwealth. And we're excited to be able to be here tonight to bring some more attention to the benefit of these dwelling units. I'd like to introduce my panelists here this evening. From left to right, we have Marissa Meaney, who is the land use and development planner for the Office of Community and Economic Development here in Swampscott. We have Mae Cadigan, who is a Swampscott resident who lives herself in an accessory dwelling unit. And Derek Thomas, who's the founder and general partner of Incremental Developers, who will speak to you about how the development process works for an ADU. To start off, let's see a little bit of a poll of the audience here tonight. How many of you own property in Swampscott? All right. And how many feel some sort of cost or economic burden through your personal finances as it relates to owning a home or property in Swampscott? How many think about downsizing into a smaller living space to accommodating changing needs, physical, financial, economic? And then how many of us in the room would like to stay in Swampscott? That should be an easy question. I think you're catching a theme here. Does anyone have children who they would like to live with them or they live with here in town? So I think you're noticing a theme about some of the questions here that will kind of set the tone for the panel and some of the remarks from our panelists. First of all, I'd like to set the stage and give everybody a little bit of an understanding about what is an accessory dwelling unit. You'll learn more about it from some of our panelists here today. But broadly speaking, an ADU is a self-contained housing unit that is inclusive of sleeping, cooking, and sanitary facilities. It's located on the same lot as the principal dwelling unit, subject to all the other dimensional and parking requirements, that maintains separate entrances, either directly from the outside of the building or from an interior hallway or corridor that's shared with the main dwelling, and is not larger than half of the floor area of the primary dwelling unit or 900 square feet, whichever is smaller. And there's a number of different types of ADUs. There's detached freestanding ADUs, attached interior attic level ADUs, interior basement level ADUs, ADUs that are above a garage or a carriage house, and those who are converting an existing garage or a new garage into a accessory dwelling unit. I think another important thing to discuss before we get into our panelists here tonight is, broadly speaking, what are some of the benefits of an ADU and why are they something that folks should consider for their own properties? They allow you to maintain being able to stay in your community, even in your own property, but in a more manageable living environment. They allow you to live in a space that's suitable for changing physical and economic needs, and allow you to share cost of home ownership with others, easing any financial strains on home ownership. And finally, they allow you to experience intergenerational living. If you live in an ADU with your kids, or other family members, and share in some of the support that having family members nearby is so beneficial to have. You'll hear tonight from some of our other speakers, about a variety of their experiences developing, or living, or permitting ADUs. But I'm going to hand it over to the experts here tonight. And we'll start with Marissa Meaney to talk a little bit more about her experience in the Office of Community Development, about permitting and regulating some of the ADUs here in town. [Speaker 2] (5:04 - 7:58) Thank you, Ted. As Ted said, my name is Marissa Meaney. I'm the Land Use Development Planner for the Office of Community and Economic Development right in Swampskate Town Hall. And I am here to help you sort of conceptualize an ADU. And then I can work with you if you do end up working with an architect or a design firm to actually put some plans together. I can help you with the permitting process as well. But if you have a very rough idea, or you kind of just want to figure out where to start, that's where I can come in. You can come into my office. I can print out a rough property map of your property here in Swampskate. And we can go over some of the dimensional aspects and just essentially try and figure out if you can accommodate an ADU on your lot. That's something that I'm happy to talk to you about, talk to you about the different options that are available, whether you do want to do something that's detached, something that is attached, or something that is upper or lower level within your own home. Happy to talk to you about all of those options. And then I can also sort of give you an example of what a timeline might look like. Once you do actually consult with a designer or an architect to put a set of plans together, we can talk about whether or not you might need to come before either our planning or zoning boards, or if you are just all set to go ahead and apply for a building permit with our building department. The bylaw changes that Ted was talking about in the introduction are so helpful, because we allowed accessory dwelling units to exist by right, whereas before you had to come before our zoning board of appeals to get a special permit. We took away that regulation. So you can just apply straight for a building permit, provided that the structure you are looking to add onto your lot meets the dimensional requirements that we do have laid out in our zoning bylaws. So there could be some other reason why you might have to go before the planning or zoning boards, but we can definitely cross that bridge when we come to it. But if that does happen, they would just be looking at the sheer structure itself. They wouldn't be asking you any questions about what kind of person is going to be living in that ADU, how many people it's going to accommodate, that kind of thing. That concept is totally out of their jurisdiction. So if you have any specific questions about what it looks like to permit an accessory dwelling unit here in town, come talk to me. I'm your person. And we've definitely seen the conversation progress since we did adopt the bylaw a few years back. And I love to see the momentum, so I really hope that tonight's presentation is super helpful and also gets you thinking about wanting to put an accessory dwelling unit on your own lot. [Speaker 3] (8:00 - 8:13) So before we move into audience questions for you, Marissa, I have a few of my own. Since Swamps got adopted the new ADU bylaw two years ago, how many ADUs would you say have been constructed in Swamps? How many do you think there are right now? [Speaker 2] (8:14 - 10:55) Since the passing of the bylaw, I would say that I've seen about five being constructed. Some which have been able to apply for a building permit directly, because they've been located within the house itself. A couple of others that have had to come before the Zoning Board of Appeals or the Planning Board just to get approval for the location of the structure itself. For example, we just approved one, or the Planning Board just approved one back in August for a Swamps police officer, actually, who was looking to bring his parents over from Nahant. And so he's building onto his house a playroom and an accessory dwelling unit for his parents behind the playroom. So it's all going to be attached to the house. But because the total square footage of everything that he was adding was over 800 square feet, he just had to go before the Planning Board for what is called site plan review and special permit. And that's it. So the Planning Board just looked at the architectural plans, the floor plans, the elevations, asked if there were any changes to the landscaping. They want to make sure that a new driveway parking spot was included for the incorporation of the accessory dwelling unit. And the Planning Board meets monthly. So that family came before the Planning Board. They had their permit approved. And then they were able to apply for the building permit. Then I've seen somebody come and apply for a building permit just to convert their attic space into an accessory dwelling unit. And that they were able to do just by a sheer, simple building permit application, because they weren't making any exterior structural modifications. So going back to that question, I would say I've seen about five probably go through since the adoption of the bylaw. If I had to guess how many were in Swampskate right now, because the thing is, too, is that for lack of a better word, there were illegal accessory dwelling units that existed before we adopted this bylaw. People were living in spaces that we would consider an accessory dwelling unit without necessarily having had a special permit approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals to get it legitimized. But in passing the bylaw, we legitimized all of those accessory dwelling units. So there's no longer one that is actually considered illegal anymore. So if I had to make a guess based on how many I saw come in for special permits in the four years that I've been here, and those that have been applied for since the adoption of the bylaw, I would imagine probably 60 or so that are existing in Swampskate right now. [Speaker 3] (10:57 - 11:36) I think we all know, driving around town, we've seen some of the historic homes. They may have carriage homes, carriage houses with a second story above them. And that's an example of a detached second-level garage accessory dwelling unit. But I think we've all driven around town and seen some and said, oh, that's kind of cool. So an example of an ADU around town. So you've already gone through how many have been created since we passed this bylaw. How many are in Swampskate now? But I figure we might be able to turn it over to the audience, see if anyone has any questions for Marissa on the regulatory side, if anyone's interested in building an ADU, if anyone has any questions. Feel free to raise your hand. We can make sure to pass the microphone to you. [Speaker 12] (11:37 - 11:44) Just to clarify, I understood that the space limitation for these ADUs would be 900 square feet. [Speaker 2] (11:44 - 11:54) So it depends on the size of your principal structure. So if your home is 1,400 square feet, the maximum size of the accessory dwelling unit is 700. [Speaker 12] (11:56 - 11:56) So it's half. [Speaker 2] (11:56 - 12:11) It's half, but if you have a 2,000 square foot home, your maximum is 900. It can't be 1,000. So 900 is the absolute maximum. But if your house is less than 1,800 square feet, you take the half of that. [Speaker 12] (12:12 - 12:15) OK, thanks. And also, are you allowed to have more than one ADU? [Speaker 2] (12:16 - 12:29) By our current bylaw standards here in Swampskate, no. That might change with the new legislation coming out from the state. I want to say yes, but I am not quite sure. [Speaker 12] (12:29 - 12:30) Great. Thank you. [Speaker 2] (12:30 - 12:30) Sure. [Speaker 8] (12:36 - 12:43) Just a quick question about Maura Healy's allowance of ADUs statewide. How is it different from what Swampskate? [Speaker 2] (12:43 - 13:34) So it's going to be adding a little more flexibility than what we have right now. To give you an example, I'm just going to shift the presentation down over here. These are some of the bylaws that we incorporated when we adopted the new bylaw. So one of them is homeowner occupancy. So that means that if you are a homeowner of a principal structure, you have to be residing in your home in order to have somebody live in your ADU or vice versa. If you want to downsize into that ADU and then rent out your larger home to a family, that's also acceptable. But you just have to be on the property. I believe that this is going to be changing with the state regulations so that you can vacate your property entirely and rent out both your principal and your accessory structure. [Speaker 8] (13:35 - 13:45) So for planning purposes, what is the expectation with regard to when the regulations are changing statewide? [Speaker 2] (13:46 - 13:48) Planning purposes, what do you mean by that? [Speaker 8] (13:48 - 14:08) You said they may change from what's in existence in Swampskate now. Correct. You said the state regulations may change. How may they change? Are you aware of what the changes might be in terms of what Swampskate allows now and what may be changed by way of Maura Healey's new? [Speaker 2] (14:08 - 15:19) So a lot of it is the same. But the homeowner occupancy requirement, that is one of the things that is going to change. And then something else, for example, that we require here in Swampskate is that you allow one additional off-street parking space for the accessory dwelling unit with the new state legislation. I do not believe that there is going to be a parking requirement. And also, another piece of our legislation requires that the utilities in the principal and accessory structures be connected. So if you're going to build a detached structure, for example, you have to run your water and sewer to that accessory structure. Everything will be on one bill to the property owner, so water, sewer, gas, electric. But I do believe that that is also going to change with the state, in that you can have separate utilities as well. And we'll know the full list of those when that comes out. So all this to say, the state legislation is going to be a little more flexible. And then it will come time for us to just rework our bylaw to incorporate the new state legislation. Sure. [Speaker 13] (15:20 - 15:43) Just a quick question. You mentioned that it may change that someone can just move out of the property and the ADU. So that becomes an investment property then? They could, yeah. If it's not their primary residence and it's an investment property, so they're going to be not only having a higher tax rate, correct? [Speaker 2] (15:44 - 15:59) It could become an investment property. I don't know enough about real estate to know if the tax rate is going to change, but that is true. If the homeowner is not required to be on their property, then yes. [Speaker 13] (15:59 - 16:00) Thank you. Thank you. [Speaker 2] (16:00 - 16:00) Sure. [Speaker 3] (16:04 - 16:31) I believe the only interesting aspect about that is towns are allowed to regulate if they're allowed to be short-term rental on Airbnb. But that's up to every town to make that decision if they want ADUs to be subject to restrictions on Airbnb or VRBO or nightly rentals. But otherwise, you're not allowed to require family members live there or prohibit rentals or anything like that. It's just that short-term part that is left up to each town to make a decision on. Exactly. [Speaker 6] (16:33 - 16:37) If we have an ADU, do we get an extra trash bin from Swampscot? [Speaker 2] (16:40 - 16:54) As it stands, no. So keeping in line with that sort of utilities and services all being shared between the principal and the accessory structures, that also runs the same for trash and recycling. [Speaker 6] (16:55 - 16:55) Thank you. [Speaker 2] (16:55 - 17:00) Sure. One back there, Heidi. [Speaker 10] (17:05 - 17:20) So a lot of my questions were sort of answered when other people had the same questions. So the state regs are different and newer, but you will adapt Swampscots to fall under those? [Speaker 2] (17:20 - 17:20) Correct. [Speaker 10] (17:21 - 17:23) So Swampscots won't be any stricter? [Speaker 2] (17:23 - 18:39) Correct. Because as a municipality, generally speaking, when it comes to zoning bylaws, we cannot further limit what the state already protects. And so that goes for anything with respect to the zoning bylaw. For example, this past town meeting, we amended our zoning bylaw to extend protections to single and two-family nonconforming structures. Because if we have stricter limitations than what the state allows, if our Zoning Board of Appeals, for example, says you can't do this, somebody can take that denial letter from the ZBA and appeal it at the state and say, well, the state is saying I can. So it doesn't exactly reflect well on the municipality to limit what the state already protects. So there will be a lag. If the new regulations, I think, come out in February, we won't have our annual town meeting until May. So there's going to be a three-month gap in which we will have to wait to actually incorporate those new bylaws into our local zoning code. But once the state legislation does go into effect, we will begin to honor that legislation, because we don't want to face an appeal from anybody. [Speaker 10] (18:40 - 18:47) So could you just clarify what you said about the utilities? So that's going to change where they can be separate? [Speaker 2] (18:48 - 18:48) I believe so. [Speaker 10] (18:49 - 18:51) So you think that's coming in February? [Speaker 2] (18:51 - 18:58) I believe February is, is that right, Ted? Yeah, February is the date of effect for the new regulations. [Speaker 10] (18:59 - 19:06) And how does it affect the taxes of the original property? [Speaker 2] (19:06 - 19:46) Yeah, so it would be assessed differently. Anytime you make an improvement on your property, you are going to achieve a higher assessment value. So that could be said for a basement, or an attic, or even a detached structure. So even if you were to just finish your basement and make it into a man cave or something like that, or a kid's downstairs playroom, that in itself would incur a higher assessment than just a completely unfinished basement. And so an accessory dwelling unit would also, you know, the same would also apply for an ADU. And if you have a garage, or a shed, or something like that, and you tear that down, and you build an accessory dwelling unit, you'll incur a higher assessment value as well. [Speaker 10] (19:46 - 19:51) Is that like the same formula for all structures? Or is it a special one for ADUs? [Speaker 2] (19:53 - 20:19) That's a great question. And I'm happy to ask our assessing department. I don't know that we have a code in our assessing database for an accessory dwelling unit. We don't? Yeah. I don't. Yeah. So it might get assessed in the same way that a finished space gets assessed, versus an unfinished. Like a garage, or something like that. [Speaker 3] (20:19 - 20:31) The important part to note, though, it would not be assessed as a two-family structure. It's a single family home with an accessory unit. So it wouldn't change the residential classification of the structure, or the property. Right. [Speaker 10] (20:31 - 20:32) OK, great. Thanks. [Speaker 7] (20:33 - 20:50) Can I just interrupt and say real quick that our next and last of our housing series will talk about finances, and the implications. We'll be discussing these more as well on the 17th. October 17th, right? Yes. Yeah. 21st. Oh, 21st. 21st. Sorry. October 21. [Speaker 14] (20:51 - 21:01) I know your focus is on Swampscot. But if we were curious about other municipalities in the area, and what they may have, would it be the zoning department where we would start? [Speaker 2] (21:01 - 21:47) Correct. Yep. Zoning. And it kind of differs how the municipality divvies up who sort of handles zoning. Like in Swampscot, for example, you could talk to the building department, or the Community and Economic Development Office, which is where I am. We're both next door to each other. But it might differ slightly by municipality. But yes, anybody that is familiar with the zoning bylaws or the zoning code would be the person to talk to. I mean, the great thing about the state legislation that comes out in February is that no matter what city or town in Massachusetts you go to, it's going to be the same across the board. Right now, there are cities and towns in the state that don't have an accessory dwelling unit bylaw, some that don't even allow them at all. Come February, that'll change. Everybody will have an opportunity to create an accessory dwelling unit in the state of Massachusetts. [Speaker 5] (21:47 - 22:25) A quick question about the burden on our sewerage system, particularly in the Olmstead area. And we know that it's very old in places. There's still wooden pipes in the ground. Sure. So to deal with the increased burden on the sewerage system, has there been any exploration into using composting toilets as they do in other states, including New Hampshire? I don't know that they do those for ADUs. But I know that New Hampshire is taking a leadership role in implementing composting toilets. [Speaker 2] (22:25 - 23:03) I've never even heard of that. I'm happy to look into that. But you do actually bring up a good point. When you are creating an accessory dwelling unit, you will be adding a new bedroom. And a new bedroom will incur a $2,200 infiltration and inflow fee. That's something that was set up by our Department of Public Works. And that goes into their water and sewer improvement fund. Because a bedroom implies a new person, a new person using utilities on a property. And we constantly want to be able to make infrastructural improvements here in town. So the $2,200 fee will go toward that. [Speaker 15] (23:08 - 23:15) What is the minimum square feet for ADU? And can it only be put on a single family house lot? [Speaker 2] (23:19 - 23:44) So there's no minimum for an ADU, per se. But I believe the state building code says that 200 square feet is the minimum square footage for a living space. So I would go off of that. So 200 square feet, and then the maximum would be determined by, again, the size of the principal structure. Remind me of your second question. I know I had the answer to it. [Speaker 15] (23:45 - 23:47) Well, can it only be on a single family lot? [Speaker 2] (23:48 - 24:10) As of now, in Swampscott, yes. But in February, that will change. So you can have a multifamily house with an accessory dwelling unit, two family or three family, however many units. Right now, we regulate it to single family. But that will change with the new state legislation. [Speaker 3] (24:15 - 24:36) If there aren't any other questions for Marissa, we can move on to our next panelist. To my right here is Derek Thomas. As I mentioned before, he's the general partner and founder of Incremental Developers. Derek, hand the floor over to you before we get into questions. OK, introduce yourself. [Speaker 1] (24:36 - 25:31) Thank you. My name's Derek Thomas. I'm not a developer. Not a developer? Again, Incremental, right? One of the bigger groups that I go to is the small-scale developer forum two or three times a year. And I claim to be the smallest developer there. So I'm from Beverly, Salem, with my wife and 19-month-old now, trailing Ted there by a few months, I guess, as a new dad. But I got started building ADUs probably in the 2019, 2020 time frame. Boston was coming out of a pilot program where they were allowing them, by right, in three or four of their, what do we call, what does Boston call those? They're sort of a Adipan, I'd call, community justice Environmental justice? Neighborhoods. Neighborhoods. [Speaker 2] (25:31 - 25:32) Oh, neighborhoods of Boston? Yeah. [Speaker 1] (25:32 - 26:05) There were four neighborhoods in the city. So Boston ran a pilot for that for a while and expanded it citywide as a by-right program or by-right permit, again, with stipulations essentially within the existing building envelope, no bump-outs, no detached structures at that time. And since then, they've kind of, again, in another pilot program to add detached units there. So Swanscott is, by far, ahead of the game than most folks on the East Coast. [Speaker 13] (26:05 - 26:07) Can you bring your microphone closer to me? [Speaker 1] (26:08 - 29:45) A little closer here? Better. Still closer still. Really? Soft spoken. I've never been accused of being soft spoken before. So we've built almost every single type of ADU. We've built almost every single type of use case. And sort of as a matrix, if you had a question for me about either of them, I probably have an answer in terms of, we've done it in that sense. I'm not a, I'm a licensed general contractor by trade. So in Massachusetts, it's a CSL, Construction Supervised License, is the fancy term we use in Massachusetts. I'm not a classically trained builder. Like I wouldn't come and frame up a single family home for you. You wouldn't want me doing that. I'm not an electrician or a plumber. I'm a general contractor. The firm itself, we kind of key as a design build firm. So again, as a general contractor in the state, I'm licensed to design and sort of sign off on up to a four family home, up to a certain square footage. After that, you really need an architect or an engineer to design it for you. Years ago, we stepped away from me kind of coming up with the designs. Usually, aside from what you have in Marissa as a resource in this town, which again, is rare to say the least, your first call would be to an architect. Could be to me. I'll give you my information. But I would say, do you have plans? That's really the first thing you need. A good architect, worth their weight in gold. They're going to do a lot of the pre-zoning analysis that you need. They're going to sit with you and do sort of schematic drawings. Like, what are your ideas? What is it for? What do you need? What don't you want? Is it for aging in place use? Is it for the kids are coming back? And that's where they're going to live. There's all these sort of considerations. And the other great part about sort of starting with an architect and having a set of plans, two or three sheets, nothing absurd, not something that you can submit for a building permit yet at that point. But in most cases, for a few thousand dollars, $5,000, $6,000, you can get a plan set that now is yours. You have it. You can send that out to builders and contractors and get different pricing and kind of know what you're getting into or what your budget might be. All of those things. So an architect is a great, great start. I'm kind of in the middle. Again, as a private company, the ability to usually answer most of the questions that your town administrator will be able to answer. Again, I've been lucky enough to work with Marissa in Salem. Salem has a pretty good ADU program. You can go to their website. It's imaginesalem.org or Salem ADUs. You Google it, it'll pop up. They have a video on their website of Kim Driscoll, now Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, doing an information video about ADUs. That's me. Those are our ADUs on that video. We produced it for them. That's something we are happy about. What else? What have I kind of high level stuff or questions? [Speaker 3] (29:45 - 29:50) Yeah, I think I can ask you a few questions before I turn it over to the audience. Have you done any work here in Squawkscott yet? [Speaker 1] (29:50 - 32:35) Yes, we've been through the permitting process. Again, thanks to Marissa, it was early on for a detached one. And we can all kind of sit here and say, well, it's A, B, C, D, very sort of systematic. It's not a trivial process. So even though it might be 300 square feet or 900 square feet max, it's just an ADU we're building. It's the same divisions and trades as though you're building a four-family home through the lens of an architect or the permitting side of things I still have to come up with. It's over 100 pages of documents between things that deal with building code, the plans, the zoning. The thing that triggered our ZBA visit was not the new ADU allowance, but setbacks, issues with setbacks, the underlying zoning code. That does not change. You're not changing the zoning of anything. It's that you have to sort of go and get relief from that underlying zoning code, in which case in Squawkscott, it's the special permit? Site plan, special permit. Site plan, special permit, right. And again, from my perspective, somebody that does this statewide, in a way, and the frustrating part being is that every city, town, municipality has a different bylaw or underlying zoning code. So it's never sort of cookie cutter. You can't just say, here's the plan set, and we're going to plop this here. Or 80% of the work that we've executed has been within an existing building envelope. A lot of our work has been in the city of Boston, single families, multifamilies, usually in the basement. And luckily, usually, again, these aren't basements that are below grade, no windows. These are, if they don't, we end up adding separate entrance and egress. A lot of them in Dorchester still have the old car bays underneath the house that are turned into sliders at some point. So we take that out, turn it into a door, and that's one of them. So again, as far as the building code goes, that's set at the state level. And then we deal with energy code now. This Swampsdale stretch code? Energy stretch codes, and how do you attain that, especially with new construction and HRS ratings? Again, it's about 125 boxes that have to be checked from the time of an initial conversation between an owner and myself and the time you get a set of keys. The planning, the construction, the budgeting, the execution of it, it's all the same as building a brand new single multifamily home. [Speaker 3] (32:36 - 32:48) In some of the projects that you've worked on, what generally would you describe as the cost for an ADU construction, and also the timeline for your typical, or maybe your easiest and your most difficult project? [Speaker 1] (32:48 - 37:01) Yeah, I'd say average is probably best, right? It's like regression to me with all of it. About $200 a square foot, where you end up, and about a year. So I use the $200 a square foot and about a year in terms of buy right. It's never really buy right. Stuff can come up, right? It may be a buy right permit in terms of the underlying zoning or what the city or town may permit. But then there's the building code. And again, it may violate a setback or a height restriction, which again, has nothing to do with the town of Swampscott, but the state bylaws in terms of an appeals process. So when you go to ZBA, you have a 20 day statutory cooling period with the state. There's another 20 days. So it adds up quickly. Again, I keep bringing up Swampscott being so good, but it has been. It was a great, it really was a good experience. Boston is Boston, right? So they've come a long way. And there are a few folks at ISD who review plans. And we've sort of been able to work things out and streamline things in a way. But there's still the big, giant bureaucracy of the city of Boston and getting things through there. So if all of your ducks in a row, I believe the state law is when a building commissioner plan review team gets a set of building plans or a building permit, they have 30 days to review that. I've had maybe three in the course of four or five years of building where everything was in a row. And it could be two or three weeks to get that permit. So a month or two to get the planning side worked out, contractual stuff, the plans from the architects, converting a basement space that's already existing in a single family. When we jump up to two family, the building code changes. So if you have a two family and you're adding a unit, you now have three. So you've jumped up out of IRC and into IBC, International Building Code, which now requires fire protection systems. And so it kind of steps up. And your permitting gets a bit more in depth from there. So the 200 number, or I say per square foot, in Boston and in this area, we tend to historically fall within. NAHB is the National Association of Home Builders. And they keep a running sort of monthly tab on lumber costs and construction costs. And every time I go and look at it, Boston, our costs end up being right in line with whatever their average is. So the national average out of NAHB for lumber or for general construction costs, it's right around there. So whatever the math is on that, 1,000 square foot ADU, $200, $200,000 is probably about right. And again, it skews a little bit. Why? Because even though I'm only building 600, 700 square feet on average, I still have to put in a bathroom, maybe one and a half baths, which is the same as a single family home of 3,000 square feet. I've got to cram it in there so your price per square foot goes up a little bit. So it can sound like a scary number. That's a new detached is probably in that range. If you have an existing single family home, an existing basement space, or an attic space, there's already an egress there, you probably get it done for $100,000. You don't have to have a fire protection system in there. Do you have a window already 44 inches off the ground, net clear opening of five square feet, 5.7, depending on how much. Which is why I always say to folks, come to me first. And I can usually, within 30 minutes of being in a space, say, here's what's good, here's what's bad. Or you've got four strikes counting against you, and it just doesn't make sense for this space. Or you've priced yourself out. Or here's a better option. [Speaker 3] (37:03 - 37:11) And of all of the ADUs that you've constructed, any success stories come to mind that are worth sharing? [Speaker 1] (37:11 - 37:12) Yeah, all of them. [Speaker 3] (37:12 - 37:13) Right answer. [Speaker 1] (37:14 - 40:00) No, I'd say it's more so the ones that we haven't constructed are the ones that are the cautionary tales, which is, again, a great function of what we're doing here tonight, which is information, getting the word out. Where I live in Salem, my wife and I recently purchased, a couple years ago, a home down in South Salem by the college. And an older couple had been there about 40, 45 years. They let the daughter live there, my understanding, sort of rent free for many, many years. And eventually, this stuff catches up on you. When single earning household, retired, taxes go up, even though your fixed income probably is not, if they had only known that they could have either converted or renovated or torn down and rebuilt the giant three car garage that we have, or again, kind of getting in the weeds, but it's technically a two family home that we bought. They'd been renting it out since like the 70s. They could have legally converted into an ADU and brought in, I don't know, what, a rental income for rent for a two bedroom in Salem is. But it's aggressive. So it's about education and knowing. So those are the stories that I kind of always think about. We've done a few, again, Oxford was one. Like, never want to do a project in Oxford, Massachusetts, again, simply for the drive from Salem. But that was, I mean, for intents and purposes, that was a 1,200 square foot single family home that they added on their lot. And it was the parents had been retired for a while. They were living in Arizona somewhere. They kind of had enough of it. Said, we're going to come back. The kids are now teenagers and starting to be in middle school and high school. And they're going to come back and help raise kids. Shale and Buck, and they're still there helping raise the kids. Trying to think of some other great success stories. And again, one of some of the notes that I took were, it's like, it's not so much what is an ADU and just the types of ADUs, but the use cases for each one. Again, you've got this sort of matrix. So you can build one and rent it out, if your city or town allows that. So now you have rental income. You can also, my understanding is, depending on the town, you could build and live in that smaller unit at no cost and rent out your existing larger home, which is probably going to bring in more rental income, again, year leased or whatever it is. And again, I've done all that, right down to like, we've done a few projects in Brighton where homeowners are just renting them out to college kids year round. [Speaker 3] (40:02 - 40:05) Thank you. Turn it over to the audience now if anybody has any questions. [Speaker 7] (40:07 - 40:09) Ted, there's one question behind you. [Speaker 3] (40:12 - 40:20) I'll take the question online. Is it true ADUs can only be built in single family zones and not two or more family zones? [Speaker 2] (40:22 - 40:46) I think I answered that one earlier. Someone in the audience here had the same question. But right now, here in Swampscot, we only allow, just to reiterate, ADUs accessory to single family homes, but that will change with the forthcoming legislation from the state that is due to take effect in February. So they will, accessory dwelling units can be constructed or erected on lots with multifamily homes. [Speaker 3] (40:47 - 40:52) And then the second question is, could an ADU that was built on the lot of a single family home condoize? [Speaker 2] (40:55 - 41:14) From what I remember in my training with council regarding the state legislation, the answer to that is no. I don't remember the reason. I think it's just it's logistically a little too complicated to sort out. So the answer to that is no. [Speaker 3] (41:16 - 41:20) Thank you. Other questions for Derek? We have a few hands. [Speaker 8] (41:24 - 41:39) With regard to the state regs coming out or any regs that are in existence right now, how does one define a kitchenette for the purposes of an existing dwelling space being used as an ADU? [Speaker 1] (41:40 - 43:04) Yeah, so we say like right now, I think Marissa touched on it, maybe illegal units, right? Everybody knows the mother-in-law, the mother-daughter. Like if you have a finished basement that my parents lived in, it is one way in, one way out. If you go up the stairs, you're like in the kitchen of the other house. That's an in-law apartment. And we call it like one hell of a wet bar. It's not really a kitchen. What makes a kitchen a kitchen in a home, sort of a home or a dwelling, a dwelling is the range, the stove, the ability to cook. So having a finished basement with bathroom, full bathroom and a sink and a toaster oven and a little hot plate, that's not a kitchen. That's not a dwelling unit. Again, relevant of whatever the local code may be. So that's a big differentiator when you're putting a, it's really the separation of the unit and then the kitchen being having cooking facilities, a range. Yeah, well, that's in building code. Yeah, building code. Again, for discussion purposes, ready to use in one or two units or again, a dwelling. Everybody, a single family home is a dwelling. Eight unit apartment complex has eight dwellings in it. That's all a dwelling is. Yeah, it has to do with the cooking. [Speaker 12] (43:11 - 43:15) Thank you. Where do prefab units figure in all of this? [Speaker 1] (43:15 - 45:38) Yeah, so the key is that, you hit it. I don't know if you did it intentionally, but there's prefab and there's modular, excuse me. Prefab and modular, and then there are, I can never get it right. It's actually quite complicated. So we don't call them mobile homes anymore, right? As of 1978, and the homes, whatever it is, HUD, essentially. So 1978, we started calling them mobile homes or trailer parks and all that. They're now manufactured homes. And a manufactured home gets a red label from HUD that says it was built on an assembly line and inspected by a HUD inspector. And many cities and towns across the country have code and their zoning code that says you cannot have a manufactured home on a single family lot. That's different from modular and prefab. Again, correct me if I go off course. So a modular prefab, I actually was talking about this the other day. I think the first house we ever lived in, my dad's retired, so I'm a fireman, and sort of like did construction. The first house we ever lived in came in two parts. It was the first floor and the second floor. It was modular, you know, in Linn. Came and dropped in, oh, cool. Four or five years old seeing this. That's modular. But it gets put down there. It's sort of like put together, but it's not really done yet. The local inspector can still come in and say, okay, looks good. What are you gonna do here? Okay, what's the installation gonna look like? Okay, I now see the installation and great. Plumbing inspector comes in. Plumbing's now in because the plumber put that in with the prefabricated stuff that comes off the assembly line anyways. That's a completely different situation. Nobody's really figured out the solution for ADUs in terms of like a modular or prefabricated system where we can truck one in from Vermont or Northern Maine where costs are inexpensive, plop it down and go, okay, now let's get the insulation in. We'll have the plumber come and the electrician come. It ends up kind of cost-wise. At this point, it's not a technology issue. It's like a logistics and operational kind of situation for costs. Did I answer your question in terms of the difference? [Speaker 12] (45:38 - 45:46) I think so, but so it's not prohibited that you could make modular or prefabricated into an ADU. [Speaker 1] (45:46 - 46:29) No, and I guess modular or prefab, the idea is like right now, 99% of construction anywhere, certainly in Massachusetts, it's site built, right? So you're gonna have a slab, right? And then we get through that part, the foundation, and we get a little four-inch slab or a stem wall, whatever. The framing guys are gonna come and they've got their wood that shows up and they frame it right on site. I could certainly frame it across the street and bring those four frames to the first floor wall. And so same idea there. Yeah, it's just at a prefab level. They're, yeah, they bring in, and you'll see them around here. A lot of apartment buildings are made that way now. They just truck in the half of the unit and they just build them up. [Speaker 12] (46:31 - 46:31) Thank you. [Speaker 15] (46:39 - 46:46) How far out does the earth have to be excavated in front of a below-grade window? [Speaker 1] (46:49 - 48:56) Below-grade window. So it's not so much that it has to be excavated out below the window. The key is if you put yourself inside and picture a basement, right? And we were all used to looking up about seven, eight feet and there's the hopper window or whatever. The state code, which is adopted from IRC, says your sill height for that window can be no higher than 44 inches off the finished floor. You're looking out, I've got my new egress window there, which also has specs that estimate. The code is that when you exit that window, you have to have net nine square feet net clear opening. So presumably three by three. Down from the sill on the outside doesn't so much matter. That's more of a construction or design detail that the architect would say, well, I only want six inches and here's the detail for what the drain system might look like in there. If you are out that window and there's more than three feet of rise to get to the surface, you have to have a set of stairs and they actually make like the egress. They just kind of pop them in. They'd have the built in little ladder form. So it's not so much even about getting out. It's more, again, I try to paint picture of, it's 2 a.m., there's a fire. The fireman needs to get in there with all of his gear. That's where like your minimum net clear openings come from and can a fireman get down into that space? Can a, I don't know where the 44 inches comes from, but there's probably an age there where they say, okay, can a five-year-old at this average height get up 44 inches out and then up? I have three of them open right now, two different projects and all of them are only about a foot or two once you get out that window, which is nice because we only have to sort of build a little retaining wall and kind of make it landscape-wise blend in, yeah. That answer it kind of enough? Awesome, awesome, awesome. Any other sort of? [Speaker 11] (48:56 - 49:11) Yeah. Process-wise, if we were considering having an ADU, would we contact you? You would come over and look at the site, is that what I'm hearing? And then kind of help us with hooking up with an architect and all that? [Speaker 1] (49:11 - 50:49) Yeah, and again, that's sort of like my canned answer aside from, that I'd give to anybody aside from being in Swampscott and with what you have in your, with Marissa and some of the folks here at your town is a little bit different because she sort of wrote the code and knows it inside and out. A lot of places don't have that. So yeah, that's what I would say to anybody. And we have our website, little information form people fill out, and that's usually my first, it's a five or 10 minute phone call. Doesn't make, yeah, okay, where are you located? I can see it on Google Maps. Where are you thinking of putting it? Okay, I can see the garage from Google Maps in your backyard there. Between me living in Salem, having projects on an offshore, three or four open projects in the city, I'm usually in Carvelt Fridays and end up making my way around like half of Northeast Massachusetts to look at stuff. Bridgewater, Bridgewater is, yeah, going to Bridgewater. Oh, Brockton, somebody wrote me from Brockton. So as you can imagine, it was in August that the governor signed the new law. Our website went from kind of like a couple of months inbound, we were sort of transitioning away from the ADU side of stuff as a business perspective and we sucked right back into it because the phone and email is just off the hook again. So yeah, quick phone call and come out, and like I said, we look at it. Great, here's what, whether you do it through me or with me or you have an architect that you find, it's definitely your first step. [Speaker 11] (50:52 - 50:57) You had mentioned you have a list of some good architects, so we would all love those names. [Speaker 1] (50:57 - 51:44) Yeah, and actually on that note, the other one I'll give you is, which is really good and I always recommend it, it's accessorydwellings.org. Accessorydwellings.org, it's Cole. He wrote like, I don't know, Backyard ADU or something like that 15 years ago. He's like the godfather of ADUs. But they also have a list of, at one point, about three or four years ago, I was the only builder in Massachusetts that was listed under the, and there was like 500 in California listed. Yeah, which California's about 20 years ahead of us on the ADU front. California, Oregon, Washington State, it's just like a standard process out there. They've had them for many, many years, so yeah. Incrementaldevelopers.com, you can. [Speaker 14] (51:47 - 52:00) I have a question. I realize it's early in the game, but say a property lends itself to several different options. Is there one that tends to be less expensive to construct and hook into the plumbing and everything than others? [Speaker 1] (52:01 - 53:46) Yeah, it's sort of like reduce, reuse, recycle. It's always from a development standpoint. It's not really an adaptive reuse type of thing, but my company's incremental developers, right? It's an industry term, incrementally developing or building into something. If you have that existing space that I don't have to build from nothing, I can convert it. You already have your civil, right? And site work is already done. Your water's already at the house. We're just taking hot and cold water off either the existing tank and running it to the new unit or putting in a smaller tank system. It goes for all the systems of plumbing, electric, mechanical. Yeah, mainly it's that your building envelope is there. If you said, look, I want 900 new square feet. I've got this old garage. Can we sort of convert it? Okay, maybe, probably. It's there, the shelves there. You see that all the time, right? They gut it and redo it, tear it down and rebuild it. But yeah, anytime or even, I think it was probably up there, we'll call them bump outs. Or it's an addition. You know, if you have the ability to do an addition. Again, it affects it all the way up and down. Again, myself or an architect or an engineer is gonna be able to say, well, here's why a bump out would work or an addition would work or are you now doing, again, there's all these sort of, north of 50% of the floor area ratio that you're adding now triggers energy codes and compliance requirements. So yeah, it's not process-wise, certainly easier and less expensive and quicker to build off of anything that's already there. [Speaker 5] (53:49 - 55:17) I wanted to ask a clarifying question in terms of terminology. It seems like ADU is now getting to be a bit of a passé term, whereas before it required certain types of people were required to live in ADUs and now it seems like they're gonna be rentable units and other people. So in other words, it's sort of the legal in-law apartment. It's just, it's adding an apartment to your home or somewhere on your property. Or if it's a freestanding unit, it's like a tiny house or something like that. So given that there's a big tiny house movement, I'm wondering, is there, and some of tiny houses are movable and some are fixed. Is there a foundation requirement? And then also looking just briefly for prefab houses, I'm wondering about the, just curious about the timeframe. It looks like on Amazon you can order a tiny house for $35,000, including free shipping, which I don't know what that means, but I'm just wondering how that affects the timeline. If you're being in the industry, I'm not trying to be humorous, but being in the industry, initially humorous, but being in the industry, are you familiar with anybody that has used something that they've gotten prefab from maybe another country or something like the things that are like Boxable makes out of Nevada or are they just curious about your experience with those types of builds? [Speaker 1] (55:17 - 58:09) So you should definitely buy one for $35,000. If you're a Prime member, just return it if you don't like it. So, no, it's, right, words mean things, right, and you used like I think five or six different terms I caught for a dwelling. A tiny home could be one thing, which in the state of Montana on 9,000 acres that my uncle owns and he's gonna let me put my tiny home on a trailer, that's a tiny home that I live in. And off the grid, you know, a local city or town might have a different definition for what a tiny home is or a dwelling or you said apartment, or an apartment, what's an apartment? Is it a condo apartment? Is it an apartment that was built? So it's the terminology. And it kind of ties into what she was asking earlier about the prefab or the modular. So like Boxable, Boxable would be great, but Boxable is a prefab. So their big thing is, and how do we get that red label from HUD? And just because they have that red label from HUD doesn't mean that now you can buy one and they ship it out here and you plop it onto a lot in Swampscot. It doesn't work that way. Yeah, foundations have a lot to do with stuff. If it's not, and it has, and this goes back to the 1978 thing with HUD and what makes a mobile home or a manufactured home or a trailer house, whatever, it's the axle. It's a factory, you can move it. Just because you take the wheels off doesn't mean it's not one anymore. Which again, I like kind of, I'll say it to them right in the face, it's architect. And architects that know what they're doing or have done it. So I think everybody's like, oh. So there's two that I've worked with consistently that I know have done them. So one is SIC, Social Impact Collective. It's Mike Chavez, he's out of Boston. I don't even know at this point how many he's done. Probably like single handling most of the ADU permits that have gone through ISD in Boston the past few years, they've had a hand in. So Social Impact Collective, you can Google that, they'll pop right up. And then DSA, Derby Square Architects, out of Derby Square, that's Bill. Again, he's executed a few of them. So yeah, whether it's one of those two or myself, just, and it's like, don't use somebody that has not done it before. I'd hate to, you know, at least, or built a, you know, a detached unit somewhere. It doesn't, right, accessory dwelling unit. Salem, I think, calls them additional dwelling units. Ancillary dwellings, it's that term dwelling unit. What makes a dwelling unit in terms of your local zoning code? Or the locally adopted building code as well. [Speaker 3] (58:10 - 58:13) Yeah. I think we have another question in the back there. [Speaker 9] (58:13 - 58:31) Hi. It seems like we started to get a little philosophical or semantic there. Did you really answer the question about, do you need a foundation? And can you buy a house, whether it's $35,000 or not? I mean, you may not have a vested interest in that answer, but. [Speaker 1] (58:32 - 58:42) Oh, no, no, no, it's, vested or not, I guess, sorry, to answer it directly would be, it depends on what your city or town allows. Okay, so. And I don't know, like Swamp City, so. [Speaker 9] (58:42 - 58:52) Could someone buy a prefab house from Amazon? Do they have to have a foundation? Right, so as in. And that's a dramatic change in what it costs, obviously. [Speaker 1] (58:52 - 59:18) Yeah, well, and again, just to, like, I'll stick with what I said, like, words mean things. So what you just said was, can you buy a prefabricated house from Amazon? Prefabricated is different than, like, it comes, sort of, am I confusing the terms? Prefab versus modular, and. Prefab, modular, and then manufactured. Manufactured, right. So manufactured is the one that's built in a factory. I don't know if Swampscot allows. [Speaker 3] (59:18 - 59:26) I am nearly positive that Swampscot requires a foundation for any dwelling unit, period, building code. [Speaker 1] (59:26 - 59:36) Yeah, which is essentially just reversed back to building code, right? IRC requires a permanent foundation, affixed to that permanent foundation. [Speaker 3] (59:36 - 59:56) So to tie back to your question, could you do that? Theoretically, you could buy one from whatever.com, have it shipped to your house, have somebody come out and pour a foundation, make sure it could connect to the foundation, and, you know, finalize stuff. I'm sure, theoretically, you could do that. [Speaker 1] (59:56 - 1:00:59) Yeah, and to, like, I'll touch on, I said there was, like, what, 125 boxes you gotta check, right, and all that stuff. I'll touch on one of them. So you buy that, whatever. You buy the thing off Amazon or the shed or something from Home Depot, right? And it shows up and it's ready to go. You still have to go through the inspections or your certificate of occupancy, whatever it might be. The building inspector's gonna come in and go, okay, well, what's this window? Well, it's a window for a shed. That doesn't meet energy code. It has no U-factor rating. It has no energy efficiency rating. Insulation is, I don't know, six dozen things that have to abide by local code, state code, and IRC to pass, you know, the certain phase. So, yeah, certainly feasible, yeah, I suppose. Does, you know, does it have, how does the plumbing work? Is it a composting toilet that's built in there? But the town doesn't allow that. So now you have to, anything's theoretically possible. But, again, at that point, then it just becomes more expensive to have done it correct, doing it wrong than just doing it the right way the first time. [Speaker 9] (1:00:59 - 1:01:30) That was helpful. And then, can you, I may have missed this, and I apologize, because I had to go in and out, but what do you get within 900 square feet? I mean, I don't know if people kind of have a good concept of just how many things you can actually pack into 900 square feet, you know, versus, people, you know, think, wow, I'm gonna have to make massive sacrifices. I'm gonna have, like, half a bathroom or half a living room, or just, can you, like, paint, like, what that looks like in your experience? [Speaker 3] (1:01:31 - 1:01:38) Did we already talk about that? I think our next speaker is going to touch on that. You're ahead of the curve there, Mr. Thompson. [Speaker 4] (1:01:40 - 1:01:46) Hi, I'm May Cadigan. My daughter's back there who valiantly tried to get me a trash barrel. [Speaker 18] (1:01:47 - 1:01:47) Yeah. [Speaker 4] (1:01:50 - 1:05:43) It's all about needs and wants. My daughter and my son-in-law and I joined forces in 2020 during the pandemic. I was recovering from a head injury and we just said, let's just go for it. We chose the house we live in now because it was a finished basement, but it was finished for a teenage girl and it was in separate rooms. There was a bathroom there and a little bedroom in different places. And when I moved in, I spoke with Marissa and asked her about, you know, building codes and what I might have to do. And when we were done talking, I realized, so what are my needs and wants? I was ready for tiny living. I have simple needs. Irish women don't cook, so I didn't need a stove. I do have a convection oven and a little microwave, but I have a little kitchen area. I have a little kitchen area and it's got, you know, the cabinets for the food and the refrigerator and a convection oven and a little microwave. Decided against putting a sink in and I don't even remember if that was code but just the amount of work that would involve putting the sink in. So I have a nice little kitchen area that I meet my own cooking needs. I have what I call my living room area and I have a bedroom. And in the bath, the bathroom was good size and I have what I call a kitchen bathroom sink. And that's fine with me because it's a small space and you know, I'm not walking three or 400 feet to get to the sink. So we just changed out the bathroom sink that was there and made what we call a kitchen bathroom sink. I can do the dishes in. It's perfect for me. I absolutely love living there. And what else was I gonna say? One of the big challenges was finding furniture that would fit in and out through the doors. LoveSat furniture has saved my life. It comes in pieces and you can build it as big as you want, as small as you want. Like on my couch to save room, I only got a side for this and the other side is against the wall. You stick the pillow there, no one ever notices there's not an arm on that end of the couch. I binge watched Tiny House Hunting for months and got ideas and as Derek was saying, that's big on the West Coast. And actually in middle America, they have a lot of that. It's worked wonderful for us and I tell people the three rules that our mother taught us all growing up, M-Y-O-V, do your fair share and always knock. And everybody gets along fine and it's not that there's assigned duties. We just always seem to, I still work two days a week. So if I get home before everyone else, I put the trash out. You know, that type of thing. And it's been a wonderful experience and just like I say, redoing I'm the Lady in the Basement, I'm known as the Lady in the Basement. Even my PCP said to me recently when I said, I don't need the COVID vaccine. Tracy had it twice and I didn't get it. She said, well, you live in the basement. But it's been a wonderful experience for me and it was simple for us. We just did all the cosmetic stuff and turned it into something that I wanted, you know, paint, new rugs, that type of thing. So you can fit a lot in and answer to your question. [Speaker 18] (1:05:43 - 1:05:50) I would say essentially like you leave a studio and turn it into a bedroom and a bathroom. [Speaker 6] (1:05:50 - 1:06:24) It's like you set up, it just works, but you have it, you have your own bedroom, you have, what I think was, oh, thank you. The bathroom I think was really helpful too because it already had a standing shower when we moved in and it was just big enough to move around in. The bedroom isn't as large. So the bedroom, the bed that you have to paint a picture is what, like a full? So we're not like. No, it's more of a twin, but it's a day bed style. [Speaker 4] (1:06:25 - 1:06:28) So, and it's against the wall, so I'm not gonna fall out or anything. [Speaker 6] (1:06:28 - 1:06:54) So like. And the cats. Depending on 900 square feet, I doubt you're fitting like a king California size bed in there to think about it. But lovesack, yeah, that you can customize your furniture. And there's just so much I think you can work with. The container store is amazing, things like that. But I would think of it as like a studio apartment with a separate bedroom and obviously the bathroom there. We were like 800-ish? [Speaker 4] (1:06:55 - 1:06:56) About 800. [Speaker 6] (1:06:56 - 1:06:57) Yeah, about 800, I think. [Speaker 4] (1:06:58 - 1:07:02) But when you watch tiny house hunting, it's amazing what they fit into three and 400. [Speaker 1] (1:07:04 - 1:07:06) Yeah, three, 400's small. [Speaker 4] (1:07:06 - 1:07:07) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:07:07 - 1:07:12) It's small. I think building code is in masses 300. [Speaker 6] (1:07:12 - 1:07:20) I think 900, it really sounds small, it's not. Because I lived in like 700 in a one bedroom apartment. Yeah, like 900 actually is like. [Speaker 1] (1:07:20 - 1:07:26) May, did you add the wall for the bedroom or was it there as part of when you finished it previously? [Speaker 4] (1:07:26 - 1:07:27) No, that was all there. [Speaker 1] (1:07:27 - 1:07:28) It was there? [Speaker 4] (1:07:28 - 1:07:28) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:07:28 - 1:07:31) And so it was the room that was there and you said this would be bedroom. [Speaker 4] (1:07:31 - 1:07:31) Yeah. [Speaker 11] (1:07:35 - 1:08:12) I just wanna add. The 900 square feet is a lot of square footage. I mean, we both sell houses, so. I got a two bedroom, not that it's a plug, but a two bedroom, a bath, a living room, good size. Kitchen, big with an island in the middle of it. A little room for exercise, say tiny, but little. And that's about 900 square feet. So you can fit quite a bit in 900 square feet. It's a decent size. I mean, we sell houses around here that are 1,000 to 1,100 square feet and that's not that small. Just to kind of give you a perspective. [Speaker 3] (1:08:13 - 1:08:55) I can provide some context that my wife and I, when we first moved to Swampsville, we bought a 900 square foot house on Puritan Road. It's like my favorite house and we don't live there anymore, but it's still my favorite house. But we lived there up until about a year ago with me, my wife, my dog, my infant son at the time, and then my parents who would visit all too often to see their grandson, all in 900 square feet. And it got a little tight, but we would fit two, four, five people plus a dog in 900 square feet. So it was totally doable, totally manageable. And it was kind of nice having everybody cozy. So yeah, for context, there's a lot of houses in Swampsville that are like 900 square feet. So Bob, I think you had a question. [Speaker 17] (1:08:55 - 1:09:05) Yes, so refresh my memory. Under current regulations or under the state's new regulations, is there a separate entrance required for an ADU? Yes. [Speaker 1] (1:09:06 - 1:09:17) Yeah, the building code itself requires two separate entrances and egresses. Why? I guess I don't know. [Speaker 2] (1:09:18 - 1:09:20) Fire safety, evacuation safety. [Speaker 1] (1:09:20 - 1:09:54) Right, because every, yeah, every dwelling needs two ways in and out. You have a separate one. So yeah, that's where it's, two separate entrances and egresses. Yeah, in and out. Yeah. And like, again, you start getting into the local codes. Like in Boston, we've dealt with every single possible version of how do you, again, coming up some stairs that are there and existing, but they dump into a kitchen. Is it possible that we just somehow do a partition wall up there? Or are we now talking about adding, egress cut through the foundation and so, and everything in between? Yeah, two building codes. [Speaker 2] (1:09:55 - 1:10:09) And those egresses can be, one of those egresses can be one that leads, if it's an attached structure, it can be an egress that leads into the main principal structure. So it can be basement stairs, attic stairs, what have you. And then another egress should be one that actually leads to the exterior. [Speaker 16] (1:10:11 - 1:10:20) I don't know if I missed it, because I was here a little late, but is there an amount of land that you need to build one of these houses? [Speaker 2] (1:10:20 - 1:11:19) So that's where the, sort of the clear-cut answer is no. But how big you, if you were looking to build an addition onto your house or do a detached accessory dwelling unit, yes, you have the square footage regulation to work with in the definition, like half the square footage of the principal structure, but not in an excessive 900 square feet. But you could also be limited in how much square footage you get based on how big your lot is. Because we also do have zoning dimensions that won't allow you to cover your lot. Your building can't take up more than 30% of your lot. So if you were going to build either an addition or a detached structure, you wanna make sure that you're staying within those parameters. What about your neighbors? Isn't there supposed to be a certain amount? Correct, there are also setback requirements too. And those depend on whether you have an attached or a detached structure as well. [Speaker 3] (1:11:20 - 1:11:39) And you can get relief from the zoning board from your setback for an accessory dwelling unit, but that's just, would give you another reason to go to the zoning board. They wouldn't have any use for the reason for your construction, but just because it's within one of the setbacks, they would have regulatory authority to give you relief. [Speaker 6] (1:11:42 - 1:11:53) This question's for May. What have been the benefits for you moving in with your beautiful, smart, successful daughter? [Speaker 4] (1:11:55 - 1:11:58) Well, my grandchildren have fur. [Speaker 6] (1:11:58 - 1:11:59) That's true. [Speaker 4] (1:12:00 - 1:12:58) So I love having the dogs running down and visit me. Just like I was always a gardener. And my son-in-law likes to do a lot of outside work too. And I did bring too many pots when I first moved in. So I hid them behind the garage and gradually took them back out over a few years. But I still get to do the fun part of gardening, like flower planting and different things like that. And he does all the mowing and the raking and sort of all that stuff. So it's- But like, let's say like mental health benefits or like things like that. Wonderful, yeah. Just three weeks ago, I had to call an ambulance. And although anyone knows how to call an ambulance, to be able to walk upstairs and call for Tracy and be there when the fireman showed up. [Speaker 18] (1:12:58 - 1:12:59) That's true. [Speaker 4] (1:13:00 - 1:13:25) I said, do you think the fireman will come? She said, we can only hope. But yeah, it does do a lot for your mental health. Just, you know, even when they go out to dinner and she comes home and bends my ear while I'm lying in bed, that's been a lot of fun too. So it is, because I was alone for six years before we did this. And that was taking its toll. And this has really made a difference. [Speaker 2] (1:13:26 - 1:15:34) Wanna touch, I wanna comment on that too from the opposite perspective. I grew up in a, granted it was a two family house, not an accessory dwelling unit, but I grew up with my maternal grandparents living downstairs my entire life until they both passed. And my grandfather passed when I was 12, but then my grandmother passed when I was 23. So it's an experience that if I could go relive, I would go back yesterday. I never took it for granted. I was always so happy to have my grandparents around. And especially, you know, my best friend growing up, her parents were from out of state. Her dad grew up in Ohio and her mom grew up in New York. So she had all four of her grandparents living out of state and I had my own downstairs, you know? It was just great to be able to see them every day, watch my grandfather do gardening. And, you know, they're from Italy. My grandmother was an incredible cook. Having Sunday dinners at the house every week, even just like for, it helped my parents out too, you know, the random weeknights where my parents had to work late. We would have a Wednesday night dinner down at my grandparents' house. And it just, it made all the difference growing up. I think it, especially when my grandfather died, you know, my grandmother was alone for, not alone, but you know, she was without her husband for 12 years. And we actually, my parents had purchased a home, just a mere few blocks away. And we had plans to, they had plans to demolish the structure and rebuild a new one. And we would eventually have moved into that home. My grandfather died just a few months later. So we scrapped all the plans just to stay with my grandmother, you know? Granted, we would have only been a few blocks away, but my mother couldn't bring herself to leave her own mother. And I don't know what my grandmother would have done in that situation. So just to have been with her, she was my best friend. And so, like I said, just intergenerational living is so beneficial. It really builds like a stronger community within your family unit as well. So speaking as somebody who grew up with that and truly knows nothing else, it was wonderful. [Speaker 4] (1:15:35 - 1:15:55) The other interesting too, and I know in our neighborhood is a lot of our neighbors, age-wise, are right in the middle between Tracy and I. So the relationships are like the same but different, you know what I mean? So I found that interesting as well. But I would highly recommend it. It's really worked out well for us. [Speaker 7] (1:15:58 - 1:16:20) Can I just say that from the perspective of Swampskate for All Ages and aging services in Swampskate, I think ADUs is better than sliced bread. And it just makes me, it gives me goosebumps listening to May and Marissa talk about how wonderful it is that we're bringing generations back together again. And so, come on guys, go out and build an ADU. [Speaker 3] (1:16:20 - 1:16:23) I think there is one more question in the back. [Speaker 10] (1:16:25 - 1:16:37) So on a detached dwelling, like a unit for two people, could you have a little front porch? Would that be included in the 900 square feet? [Speaker 2] (1:16:39 - 1:17:45) It depends on how covered the porch is. If you just want to put like a top cover over the front porch and not have the sides covered, then you can build that without it counting toward your square footage area. So you could have the 900 square feet interiorly and then a front porch on top of that. Nice little rocking chair, Adirondack, what have you. Actually, I want to say somebody, I might actually have plans for an ADU with that included. And I'm happy to, any of the plans that have come through our office, by the way, are all public records. So if any of you want some kind of inspiration, reach out to me and just ask for architectural plans of ADUs that have been submitted to the Community Development Office, to the Building Department, just to see what people have come up with. So I could be misremembering, but I do think a porch was included on some version of an ADU that I saw recently. It might be just a statement. [Speaker 12] (1:17:48 - 1:17:57) Very quickly, what is the story with the resale of this property? Your ADU and your primary residence need to be sold together? [Speaker 3] (1:17:58 - 1:18:03) Yes. All under one deed. So they're required to be sold together. [Speaker 12] (1:18:03 - 1:18:04) Okay, great, thank you. [Speaker 7] (1:18:09 - 1:18:12) I haven't gotten all my steps in yet today. Come on. [Speaker 3] (1:18:16 - 1:18:31) If there's no other questions, I just want to thank our panelists here for their time, stories, and effort. And thank you all for coming out. I can hand it over to Heidi for any final remarks. [Speaker 7] (1:18:32 - 1:18:50) Just really quickly, there is a sheet going around. If you did not get the handouts, please put your name and address here and we will get them mailed to you. And thank you so much, panelists, for coming and being here with us tonight and sharing all of your thoughts and your passion for this wonderful ADU. Thank you.