City Council - Regular Meeting

I call to order this joint meeting of the Gardener City Council and the Gardener Planning Board on Monday, November 3rd for the purpose of a joint public hearing. The joint hearing notice reads as follows. Pursuant to general laws 40A subsection 5, notice is hereby given that the city council and planning board will conduct a joint public hearing on Monday, November 3rd, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. in the city council chamber of room 219 city hall 95 Pleasant Street Gardener to consider amending chapter 675, the zoning code of the city of Gardener. The proposed amendment involves changing items item 11688, an ordinance to amend chapter 675 of the code of the city of gardener, thereof entitled zoning to allow for the operation and use of cottage kitchens in residential districts within the city of gardener. Item 11704, an ordinance to amend chapter 675 of the code of the city of gardener, thereof entitled zoning to promote housing growth and production in the city. Information regarding these amendments are available for viewing in the city clerk's office, the department of community development and planning, DCDP, or the city's web page, www.gardner-ma.gov. All persons interested in this matter and desire to offer testimony are invited to attend the hearing ttan city clerk. This is the notice that was also posted on the city website.

The clerk will now please do a roll call. Council Brooks, present. Councelor Craig Cormier. Council Delaware present. Council Harder present. Council Heath present. Council Heglan present. Council Kazinskus. Council Math present. Council Tony present. Council Tunos present. President Tyrros present. Mr. Paul Cormier present. Mr. Steven Cormier present. Mr. Flint and Mr. present.

Quorums for both bodies are present. Tonight, we will be entertaining each item separately, beginning with a hearing on item 11688. As a reminder to the council and planning board, plea, I ask that you please hold your questions or comments till after the public has had a chance to give testimony. I now declare open the public hearing for item 11688, an ordinance to amend chapter 675 of the code of the city of gardener thereof entitled zoning to allow for the operation and use of cottage kitchens and residential districts within the city of garden. Does anybody wish to speak in favor of the proposed amendment? Please state your name at the podium.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Mike Nicholson, mayor of the city of Gardener, 131 Crestwood Drive. Uh, I'd like to thank uh, President Tyrus for asking me to uh, join him in proposing this ordinance that's before both of you today. Uh, this is something that's come up a couple of times with various uh, constituents who have reached out to us regarding their operations of cottage kitchens in the city. Uh, cottage kitchens are basically homebased kitchens that uh, operate some type of commercial um, enterprise through the goods that they cook within their home. uh be it through bakery services which is nine out of 10 really the calls that we've received uh on these matters uh or any other time uh that right now under the current zoning uh those homebased commercial kitchens are able to sell retail and do home delivery but they are not able to have people basically sell out of their homes where they're actually cooking the goods. That's what this uh ordinance proposes to fix here too. that if someone's looking to or is either looking to or is currently operating a business where they are baking goods at their home and selling it outside of their home that now they also have the option to sell that in their home as well. Uh this is actually something that we have in several locations operating in the city right now already that we found out because someone wanted to do the process the right way. Someone came to us in the building department last year and said, "I'm looking to start a cottage kitchen like these other places are doing right now. how do I do that here? And that business got stunted because they tried to follow the process the right way. And so this is something that uh we know that there's at least seven of these operating right now in the city that didn't ask and just went with it because they wanted to have their business. And you can't fault someone for trying, especially now in the post-pandemic world where so many people are working in uh from home. It's still working from home just in a different avenue, in a different venue, in a different environment. Uh so that's what this ordinance is proposing to expand access to in enabling those businesses that are operating out of their home already in legal basis in other avenues to now have

this legal basis to operate this in this own avenue and have the basically sell uh from uh where they're actually cooking the goods and honestly in a fresher environment too. Uh so that is the uh summary of the ordinance that's before you here. Uh right now uh this would allow it to be in all residential districts of the city. So single family residential one, rural residential 2 and general residential three districts. Uh this does not include it in the commercial one, commercial two, industrial one, industrial 2. Uh mainly just to be able to start us off having something where we can operate these types of enterprises in people's homes where people's homes are. We do have residences that are located in the commercial and industrial districts. Uh but this is really just the first step to see how we how where we could be and how many people are going to be involved uh in this and follow the process if we allow cottage kitchens in the uh residential neighborhoods of the city. So thank you very much. Thank you Nicholson.

Does anyone wish to be heard in favor of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in favor of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in opposition of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in opposition of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in opposition of the proposed zoning amendment? At this time, I'd like to ask if there are any questions from councilors or planning board members. Council

Tyros. Yes, I do have a click. Are there and I apologize. I I have don't have the full detail. I know that's in front of me right here right now. Uh but are there any restrictions uh from what can be we'll ask uh restrictions from what can be sold from these homebased uh you know uh home businesses.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, councelor. That's a good question. Uh, all of the I should say with both of the zoning ordinances that you have before you here this evening, all aspects of the state building code and state sanitary code do still apply for those businesses or operations or construction or anything like that. So, for instance, in this case, are there restrictions on what they can sell out of their home? And yes, and that's all uh outlined in the state sanitary code. Uh, in terms of space, in terms of equipment, in terms of uh if you sell certain goods, you need three bay sinks with hot water. If you sell certain goods, then you need a grease trap or a hood or something like that. All of those aspects of the building and sanitary codes would still apply. Uh really it it kind of limits it to um any age baked goods that could be sold out of these.

Okay. And a followup question. And so uh these kitchens uh are subject to board of health inspection on how many times? Once per year. Once what? Go ahead. uh once per year per their health permit. So they are required to be fully permitted as well from the health department. So we have a documented this is the layout, this is what they're cooking and stuff like that too. Council Mac, thank you. Council, the second question is the same as mine, one of mine, but my other question is these people uh who operate these cottage kitchen bakeries would be required to be serve safe. Yes.

Serve safe, allergen safe, all again all of the things that you would require for a regular health permit would carry for these. Any further questions or comments on the matter? Thank you, Mayor N. Thank you. I declare the public hearing closed on item 11688. I now declare the public hearing open for item 11704, an ordinance to amend chapter 675 of the code the city of gardener thereof entitled zoning to promote housing growth and production in the city. Does anyone wish to be heard in favor of the proposed zoning amendment? Please state your name and address for the record, please.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Mike Nicholson, mayor of the city, 131 Crestwood Drive. Uh to the members of the planning board and the council, you do have a packet of information in front of you. I want you to know that there's a lot more data and information in the packet here that's not in the presentation. So, in the interest of time, uh that's there for you. I want to reiterate my office is available for questions. uh if you have questions on that data after you review that later on. Uh but in the interest of time for this evening, I just want to make sure you had it there, but it might not be something that's in full detail in the presentation that I have. I'd also like to thank councelor Hardurn for asking me to join her in proposing this ordinance as well. Uh this ordinance began um really in conversations we had after the state of the city address where one of the things that I pointed out was that we're seeing a supply and demand issue in an econ 101 situation where we're seeing a massive increase in demand for housing here in Gardner but the uh stock and the supply of housing has really remained stagnant if not lowered uh over the last several decades here in gardener. So that's one of the things is how can we promote uh housing growth and production of any kind to make sure that we remain affordable in our cost of housing but also are combating the housing crisis for which gardeners no stranger for for what Massachusetts is dealing with. Uh but to better illustrate the um supply and demand issue on a very quick basis. Again there's more data in the packet here. Uh this is gardener's population from 1980 to present. We've seen an 18.92% increase in our overall population here in Gardener during the same time period. Our population back in the 19 in 1980 was 17,900. We're currently at 21,287. During the same period, the Department of Public Health also tracks the number of uh births that we have of residents here in Gardener. I want to say that this does not count uh residents of other communities that are born at Haywood Hospital. Those are counted in the home report. or someone from Harvard comes to Haywood, uh they are not counted in these numbers. We've seen a 29% increase in the number of residential births that we've had here

in the city. Um with a big jump happening between 2017 and 2018 where we saw an increase of about 200 babies that year. Uh but overall uh the smoothed out line is about um 29%. uh with but when you take into account our natural population growth that we've seen uh because the department of public health also tracks the number of resident deaths that we've had in the year this is the trend that we've seen. So the orange line is the natural deaths that we've had here in the city and the blue lines are the uh new resident bursts that we've had here in the city. And by and large except for that large jump that we saw in 2017 2018 there's not that much of a gap but the demand can be seen that we're seeing for housing in that this graph of our natural uh population growth that we're seeing when you compare births to deaths looks a lot different than this graph that we're seeing from population as a whole. And we're also seeing that our population is getting older. Uh you'll see that the num the orange is population over the age of 18. The blue is population under the age of 18. Normally we like to break this out with a 20 to 40 year range in between. Uh however the website and information for the US Census Bureau is currently not available online due to the current federal government shutdown. So this is the best that we were able to do. Uh but you can see that the blue has gone down consistently where the orange has taken an increased level of the share. As well we're talking about population and housing. Uh just so you can see the median home income for 2010 to 2013, which is the latest year that we've had data here in Gardener. Uh this is in year-to-year dollars when adjusted for inflation. Uh this is the uh graph that shows median home income in the city when adjusted going back to 2010 numbers. So comparing what our purchase power would be now for the average amount for median home income back in 2010 numbers. So then getting into how this relates to our housing itself. Uh we mainly have a very slight advantage in single family units here in Gardner. 51% of our housing stock is

single family. Uh 48% is multif family. Uh others is things like ADUs and stuff like that that uh people could live in that aren't in your typical categories in one or the other. Our number of housing units that are vacant has also gone down. We saw a 5% decrease in the last year of the number of vacance uh vacant units that we have in the city and these are considered vacant if they've been vacant for more than a 12-month period is what uh department of housing livable communities which provides this data to us uh shows that and we also know that 57% of our homes in the city of gardener uh and that's any residential housing unit are owner occupied with the remaining 43 are renter occupied uh just to give a kind of breakdown and then our housing ownership rate in that has also O shifted. We were higher in the 1970s for owners versus rent. Um that's really just showing that more people are renting now in gardener than uh fully owning the residential properties that they live in in the years that we have here. And again, 10ear uh gaps because it's a federal census. However, where I've seen the most interesting data myself and going into this after councelor Harden and I talked is these are the number of new construction units that have happened uh from the period of 2005 to present based off of building permit data that we have here in the city. We've seen not only a reduction in the number of single family housing units that are being newly constructed in Gardener, but if you look, we haven't constructed a single multifamily housing unit, new construction in Gardener since 2009. All other multif family construction that we've seen in Gardener that's happened recently has been renovations to existing structures, not actual new construction. And that's again illustrated here. So you can just see the difference between yeartoear in a different uh format for renovations that we've seen. These are the permits that we've had for alterations to buildings. This could be uh conversions to uh multifamilies. Uh these could be additions. These could be

anything that really falls into the new growth category that we have. Uh so you can see even our alterations, renovations, repurposings and things like that have also significantly decreased in the same time period uh that we're looking at here just to get data for it. And the reason why we looked at 2005 to present uh is so that we could capture the recession and see if there you we were building still in a period where we're building back up from where the recession happened and the housing market bubbled or if we were still on a similar trend than we were before that. And as you can see before the recession started in or before the recession hit in 2008, we've still been on that downward uh cycle that was there. Uh the uh this is provided just so you can see some data from 2018 to present on median sale price uh versus median list price. So you can see the difference between the sale and the listing price. That comes into play in a little bit. Uh but just so uh to be able to show the number of single family homes in gardener that have sold each year uh from 2015 to present. Uh this graph shows that here. Uh but again this only shows in the last 10 years how housing has sold here in Gardener. We've seen a lot of um sales that we feel like, oh, this is a big market that we have here. Housing's on the market, you know, day after day. It's a competitive market, and it is, but just because a house is on the market for a day or two doesn't mean that there's enough housing on the market for that day or two, and that's why it's there for the day or two. To illustrate this even more, we went back to that 2020 uh 2005 year. And this is our housing market for number of homes sold every year in Gardener since 2005. And if you look at the data, we're at the same level of housing on the market right now as we were in 2010 when we were just building back out of the housing bubble recession. Uh so we're really seeing our housing stocks going down and we're kind of trending back to where we were in the time of the recession uh for when this was going. And this can even be seen here on the rolling 5-year average. I'm going to skip the next slides because those are

uh data based on the two uh charts that we saw before and get to this slide here with the single family home price that's there. And why this is important here is our valuations in the city for the purpose of taxation uh that a lot of people use to determine whether or not how appraisals are going are based off of how these sale prices went two calendar years prior. So these prices here that you can see are very different than the housing stock graphs that we saw earlier that these have relatively gone up recently do play a fact and when we're going for not only our tax rate but valuations for properties uh the way that we build our budget here in the city. So there's a financial impact to us here in the work that we do, but also a financial impact for our residents and what they're seeing in their tax bill and their uh properties uh that whether they look to sell, whether they look to remove, whether they look to remodel, renovate, and things of th that nature. Uh but by and large, our sale to list price has been pretty consistent over the last 5 years. Uh and pretty flat uh as you see in the graph there too. Uh this is the reference. So you had that if you'd like to go back as to how we go back two years for the purpose of taxation. Uh and where this relates to our valuations. We recently saw this breakdown here of how 85% of the properties in Gardener are considered residential properties uh with 7% commercial, 4% industrial, and 4% personal property. That bakes up our full tax base that we have here in the city. Residential valuation here in Gardener has seen 102% increase from 2019 to present uh based off of those sale trends that we've seen. And again, when you go back 2 years and you see that the housing stock has gone down, but the demand has gone up, this is where this play is affecting us by these valuations going up as much as they do. And it's not just in our, you know, one particular aspect of our residential properties. For the third year in a row, our two families and our three families

uh in condominiums saw the biggest increases in valuations that we saw based off of those sale trends. For the average single family home, the average in valuation increase from 2019 to present was about 92%. For the multif family properties that we have here in the city, we're looking at 139, almost 140% increase. Again, from 2019 to present in valuations based off of sale values. And these are our rents for average here in Gardener. I want to say that these rent data comes from the multiple listing service and that there are some landlords who don't list their apartments on the multiple listing service but use things like Facebook marketplace or word of mouth or their own websites or newspaper ads or anything like that. But this is the only data that we can pull together ourselves. So for single family homes in Gardener valuations have in uh the excuse me the sale price of single family homes in Gardener has increased by about 72%. For a one-bedroom apartment, rent has increased from 2000. That's too small for my eyes even. Uh from 2005 to present, that's what these numbers are here. Uh a single family uh excuse me, a one-bedroom apartment has seen a 104% increase in rent in Gardener in the last 20 years. A two-bedroom, 104% increase in rent. And a three-bedroom, a 94, excuse me, 92% increase in rent in Gardener. And I understand not every single family home is the same as any other single family home. So we also broke that data down by bedroom. A one-bedroom uh increased by about 114%, a two-bedroom by 72%, a three-bedroom by 687%, fourbedroom by 77% and a five- bedroomedroom by almost 100% 99.38% in valuation o just over the last two years, excuse me, 20 years. uh and that's based off of a look back on how the real estate market was trending two years prior uh with that affecting everything here. So long and short is

that the demand has increased. The housing stock has really remained the same if not level if not decreased. So what we're looking at doing through this ordinance is finding ways to combat that issue that we have here. The statutory authority for everything that's in this uh ordinance here is all listed. Uh so you can go back and reference this. But again, as I said earlier, every aspect of the building code and state sanitary code does apply to this. The state sanitary code does state minimum square footage per individual that's allowed to live there, basically for occupancy load of uh the location. And then the building code sets everything else in terms of construction. So to do a quick break through here, the short title, that's just so we understand that uh really the purpose behind it. Uh section two talks about uh what we call small homes in the ordinance, what many refer to uh in colloquial talk as tiny homes. Uh this is something that's newly allowed here in Massachusetts under the latest revision of the building code. It's something that we need to adopt as a part of that because it is now part of the building code. So it is something that we need to incorporate in some way. Uh but this allows it to be put in residential districts. Uh these are uh allowed for up to 10 units per acre. So they're a lot smaller. Uh and the average selling rate right now of a tiny home in Massachusetts is around 130 to 150,000 uh dollars as compared to right now our average single family home value in gardener around 3 350 375. Um and that's again average single family home value not sale price. Sale price we're looking closer to 515,000 for a single family home uh right now in Gardner. The next section uh that talks about this is the accessory dwelling units. Uh, I do want to note that the welfare committee, the city council did vote to amend this proposal to increase the maximum uh, the excuse me, the maximum square footage from 900 square f feet to 1,250 ft. Uh, so that would have to be uh, taken into effect, but this was written before that amendment was made at the welfare committee meeting. Uh

this uh applies the law that was recently signed into law by Governor Healey known as the Affordable Homes Act that we are required and mandated to put into our zoning somewhere that allows accessory dwelling units formerly known as in-law apartments either detached or attached to be allowed in all residential districts within the Commonwealth, not just here in the city. The only change that's not the same from the Affordable Homes Act to this is that increase to 1,250 ft from the state's minimum uh excuse the state's allowable 900 ft. We can be more relaxed in the state. We just can't be more strict than what the state has. So we can't go to 800, but we could go to the 1250. The next section allows for expedited permitting for all housing project uh projects here in the city with a uh 90-day turnaround for all housing projects or if it's a veterans preference housing which is defined as uh at least 5% of a project being veterans preference uh for the sale of those properties or the rent of those properties. They'd be a more expedited timeline. Um, this is something that we uh received actually from the Secretary of Veterans Services uh as part of the state's new pledge to end veterans homelessness in the city uh that the city is looking to uh be a part of. I do want to flag for the council and the members of the planning board though that there are some ways that this may uh need some review within the next couple of weeks. Uh Governor Healey has recently announced that she has ordered the executive office of housing and livable communities to this is new uh to us recently. The announcement was originally made, but we've just seen the draft regulations within the last 3 days. Um, that she's uh asked the Housing and Livable Communities Secretariat to issue uh regulations that any housing project of of a certain size uh would require a 30-day turnaround permits and not the 90-day that we have. But why it's still important to include what we proposed in the ordinance is that you need a certain number of units for this. And it's a quite substantial

amount of units. There's acreage requirements, there's um num uh other things with that. So, this would apply to some larger developments. But what we are proposing is that for any housing development, it'd be a 90-day turnaround. Mainly because time is money. And if there's someone who's got an architect, a contractor, or things like that, and they want to get the project going, the longer we spend on the permitting time, the less time that they have in opportunity costs, and also longer term costs. if a uh contractor goes off the job to do something else because they're waiting for that project to get done. We want to make sure we're being as um productive as we can in our permitting process. Uh section five talks about a starter home overlay. Uh this is basically the in between between a tiny home and a single family home. So this is a more medium-sized house uh mainly for younger families. uh mainly for uh people who are recent college graduates looking to get out on their own, first-time home buyers so that they can afford something a little better. Um what we're seeing right now as a trend here in Gardener is that a lot of people who were looking to downsize as they got older are staying in the larger homes that they had mothballing their upper floors and treating a multi-story uh residential property as if it was a ranch because they there is no other place for them to go to downsize. And what that does, it not only allows them that they can't downsize, but it also makes it so that it doesn't free up that single family home from the housing market. And that's a trend that we've consistently seen and why those numbers are going down over the years. So, this is a trying to put something in the in between. Just because it says starter doesn't mean it has to be a starter. It's mainly a midsize home for someone who doesn't have a full-size family, doesn't need all the amenities of a larger multi-story house to have that kind of in between. Uh the next uh would create a multif family by rightight zone in certain areas of the city uh based on those uh requirements that you see uh there for the development standards. Uh this is something that there is actually a map of where we're proposing that this be put. Uh but for the starter homes and this it allows us to later on go create overlays. It doesn't set citywide

parameters for these. And I want to make that very clear. We're not changing the zoning for where people live. These two options, the starter homes and the multif family by right, create overlays so that the underlying zoning is the same. If there's a commercial property that's there and it's overlaid there, it's still a commercial property. It doesn't lose its zoning, but it creates an opportunity that if someone wants to do something later on, they're not tied to just that one specific use. If someone has a single family home in an area that's in this overlay, they can keep it as a single family home for as long as they want and have no issue with it. It adds an extra option on for our residents to have for that. But what it also does, it allows greater flexibility with people who are looking to repurpose existing multif family units. I use the example in the welfare committee uh that there's certain areas of the city right now that uh because of vacancies of over two years, certain multif family properties are now considered single family properties because of their zoning designations. And what that does, it creates extra red tape in terms of going back to get that reszoned as a multif family unit. extra cost in terms of construction standards. And again, when time is money, you're probably looking at adding anywhere between5 to $15,000 onto the project because of that. I'm sure we hear you later about how much more that could be uh too because you have to get lawyers involved and everything like that when you go through these processes here. So, this basically allows in the multif family areas of the city to remain multifamilies and keep the character of the neighborhoods that are actually already there and provide also for the housing issues that we're seeing. A couple of the next sections are based off of feedback we've received from developers. We had a housing developer roundtable earlier in the year and this is kind of feedback we received from that. Uh right now the ordinance has one unit per bedroom uh for residential parking requirements. This reduces it to one parking space per dwelling unit uh to create more greater flexibility. Uh the next uh section of that also says that if there's not enough lo uh property on the location itself to allow for those parking requirements to be met, the partnership agreement can be

signed between the owner of the residential property and another property. So basically can have an off-site parking lot uh within 15 uh 1100T radius of the building that people can walk to back and forth but still have a place to store their cars off the street. Um this section 9 and section 10 are related to each other. Um, so I'm going to go to section 10 to explain section nine. Uh, right now the current ordinance says that in all commercial one districts of the city, uh, if you're changing the upper floors or if you're not adding floors to the building that you're changing its use for, you don't have to add additional parking requirements. We're seeing this downtown with a lot of the buildings that had commercial on the upper floors and office space on excuse me commercial on the bottom floors, office space on the upper floors that they're not having to add additional parking even though they're adding residential units in the upper floors through mainly apartments because it's not adding floors to the building itself. And it was mainly to rec recognize the substantial cost that would have to go in to adding parking locations to buildings that have really been here for sometimes a hundred years, sometimes 20 years, sometimes 50 years. and in between. So what these two sections do, section 9 and section 10, would make it so that that same flexibility would not just exist in commercial one, but in all commercial and industrial zones in the city. So that if there is a property that some of it's being converted to uh housing from a commercial or industrial use that they don't have to add additional parking on site than what was originally approved in their site plan approval that was done before that. basically extending what we've done in the downtown for since I think it was 1972 that that ordinance was adopted originally. Um this is new. It's part of the new uh building code. Uh so we wanted to codify that in if we could uh allowing for compact car spaces with increased people and are looking to purchase electric vehicles here in Massachusetts or compact cars to save on gas or other things like that. It would allow up to 40% of the spaces in these units to be designated as compact cars. This would still require site plan approval, site

plan review and all of that that goes there, but it allows the option of up to those 40 to be available for compact cars with signage and all the uh basic other requirements that are there. Uh the next couple sections take what we just talked about and put them into the tables of uses. Uh so the parking design requirements, uh this one here, uh goes to the diagram that's in the ordinance that says all parking has to be behind the residential properties. This allows for greater flexibility uh as where the parking is located. Uh the next section allows for the buffer and the setbacks uh for where the parking is located. It basically takes into account that a lot of the places that we're looking at, particularly with our multif family by right zone have on a lot smaller lots than what we currently allow for new construction. So this is recognizing that in those smaller areas where construction already exists that they'd have certain other requirements to fit uh their parking on the lots that they currently have. uh snow storage uh basically changing it to adequate provisions for snow removal. This is something that again would still require site plan approval and site plan review just allowing greater flexibility as to where the snow may be stored uh rather than right now we have a prohibition that snow can't be uh stored on any area that's landscaped on the property. Uh the next section uh we currently require uh under the ordinance that all multif family units must be annually inspected by the building department. uh this is allowing some greater flexibility that if the building is a multif family that's owner occupied but five are under units. So we're not talking about the major units that have you know several sometimes dozens of apartment units there. Uh we want to make sure that those are staying safe. But what this would do is free up some time of our uh building department a little bit by sending them annually the safety standards so that they review those with their tenants rather than having to go through a full inspection uh of the building if it's an owner occupied building. If it's a non-owner occupied building and it's a fully 100% outside rent, they would still be subject to those annual inspections that are required by law.

And again, the next couple sections put these into the tables of uses. This puts the the sections 1 through five into the table of uses. This puts the lot requirements and the parking requirements also into the table of dimensional requirements. Uh and then section 18 establishes where the multif family by right district would be in the city. And this is what we are proposing through this ordinance. It basically follows the freight track lines uh along um Route 2, uh Chestnut Street, uh just behind New uh Chestnut Street, Sherman Street, Main Central, uh down through Park Street, uh and using Puffers Pond and Douglas Road as there basically the outside area that that's there. So again I do want to emphasize this is an overlay whatever uh districts are there because there are very various uh commercial industrial single family and rur uh general uh general residential zones within this district all of those will stay. What this does it allows those property owners again the extra option that if they're ever looking to sell remodel or uh renovate their properties they have greater flexibility to be able to do so within those districts. And you'll notice that in for I'd say 85 to 90% of this proposed district is already built out in multif family. So this would really just be for helping people renovate those multif family uh units that are already there to try to spruce them up without having to go through the costs that are associated there. Um so in long and short um that is the information that's there. Uh in your packets is the raw numbers data. So you can see those if you'd like to see the actual numbers that are there. Um, but this is really us just trying to address the housing crisis that we've seen. Uh, really try to get the supply back up to meet the demand that's there. Uh, based off of our preliminary studies that we've been working with, the city of Gardner is for our current housing demand that we're seeing in people who are looking to either move to Gardener or stay in Gardener after they leave their parents house. We're about 750

housing units short to meet the current demand that we're seeing. not the demand five years from now, 10 years from now, but right now in 2025. Um, so this is something that hopefully will allow some options to alleviate that as we move forward to the future. Uh, and I'm happy to take any questions later on from the members of the council of plan. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mayor.

Does anyone wish to be heard in favor of the proposed zoning amendment? Please come up. State your name and address at the podium, please. Hi everyone. I'm uh John Bavachi from Canando Realy. Um we have an office at 88 Main Street here in Gardener. Um I'd like to speak in favor of the proposed um I'll be I'll be a little bit honest like we've benefited a lot from the lack of housing supply here in the city of Gardner. We own quite a bit of residential units in the areas that were outlined and rents have gone up exponentially over the last four years that we've been in the city. Um, we do a lot of projects in the city of Gardner, but we have said no to a lot of projects over the years, frankly, due to a lot of the reasons that are being proposed to change. Parking is a big problem. A lot of the the sites that we look at, um, setbacks are a big problem with a lot of the sites that we look at. And honestly, when we rent out units, most of the time, you know, it's more likely that our residents have zero cars than two cars. Um, we've done surveys. We we've met with tenants and every time we lease units, most of the time it comes with a deed space or two deed spaces or zero spaces. And that allows us to adjust the rents up or down based off of what's available. And it gives the residents the choice of which buildings they want to move into. I think a lot of these changes will make a like the development of the the tree streets a lot more favorable. Um there's been a lot of projects over the years that we've just walked away from because the rules are are too firm and it's not worth the time, the energy, the zoning, the attorneys in order to get it through. And so I think a lot of these changes will make, you know, more projects feasible in the area and then, you know, a little bit against us, but more housing units means rents will go down. That'll hurt us a little bit in the short term, but we believe that Gardener is is ready for more growth. And I think more housing units are are welcome supply to everything that's going on in the city. I think that's about it.

Thank you. Thank you.

Does anyone wish to be heard in favor of the proposed zoning amendment? Director Stevens, Jason Stevens, director of community development planning. I've been here for just about 10 months now in this position, which is hard to believe since my first day was spent also here at this podium in front of city council. One of the things I want to make sure that is well known is that for any resident or developer looking to build in gardener I'm or I should say me and my assistant are the first faces that they see uh when submitting for anything in front of planning board. Um, we hear from residents as well for anyone who's looking to purchase a home to find a home for rent in Gardener, uh, who are looking to learn about new developments, uh, for, um, senior housing, um, affordable housing, um, any small home developments if those are in the pipeline. um I think even once or twice my assistant has sat down with residents and actually went through listings for apartments to find them a potential fit for a home and gardener. So the need is there if we are seeing that in my department if we are encountering people who are looking for homes in coming to us for help. So, I just wanted to say that as you know, my perspective in terms of uh in favor of this amendment um just hearing from all those residents over the past 10 months in terms of their needs and hopefully this being a great first step in terms of meeting the needs of the residents. Thank you.

Thank you. Does anyone wish to be heard in favor of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in favor of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in favor of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in opposition to the proposed zoning amendment?

Please state your name and address for the record.

My name is Phil Gransowitz, 14 Laurel Lane in Princeton, Mass. Um, I am a part owner of a large parcel of land and gardener along with my brother and sister that we inherited from my my parents. Um, I had some questions and concerns with this proposal um with regards to the overlay district, how it was drawn, why those boundaries existed. Um, our parcel is 1.3 acres in a very in a residential area. It's zoned for residential one. Um, I have concerns as to what property rights um, we don't have by not being in an overlay zone. The overlay zone completely goes north of Route Two. Nothing in South Gardener, nothing below Route Two. Um, this area has multif family buildings there along with some single family units. I don't see that it's any different than the areas that you've designated in these overlay zones. Um, I would like somebody on the planning commission to speak to why the overlay zones exist the way they do now and what the opposition is to extending them into Southgardner because if you're truly interested in expanding the housing stock, um, you know, why not expand it to everybody in the town? Um, I think it's it's important. I fundamentally agree with this, but I do have some issues with the arbitrary zones that have been overlay zones that have been drawn. Um, so I would ask for some clarification with regards to that.

Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone wish to be heard in opposition of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in opposition of the proposed zoning amendment? Does anyone wish to be heard in opposition to the proposed zoning amendment? Are there any questions or comments from the council or planning board? Councelor Mack.

Um I just want to reinforce what the um gentleman who was just at the podium said because as I I looked closely at this map. I mean originally um you know I noticed uh you know Oak Vernon Abbott Park. I mean there's there's a lot of multif family homes in that area as well as if you go um you know towards Chestnut and Elms. So I I just kind of have the same question is why the overlay district is so limited um in this proposal because I think it could benefit um a lot more residents to increase it. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Nixon, would you like to answer the questions?

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you very much. councelor uh and to the gentleman who asked the question earlier as well. Uh the reason where this overlay uh was chosen was mainly because it's the highest concentration of multif family units that are currently existing that we have right now in the city. Uh working with the city's assessor and GIS coordinator, we mapped out the difference in housing stock that we have versus uh single family, two family, multif family, uh condominiums, and um one other designation that I don't remember off the top of my head. uh but this area of the city that you see highlighted before you had the greatest concentration uh and the boundaries that uh we we have to set in order to avoid issues of spot zoning uh go along with natural boundaries that exist. So, for instance, a street break, a um so the route 2 bypass being a natural street break that we have a railroad thing. Um to be honest, if this got expanded, I'd have no opposition to it. If this went into South Gardener, I'd have no opposition to it. If this went further up north into the Chestnut and Elm, I wouldn't have any opposition to it. I think there's other areas of growth that you've said and has been said earlier, too, that multif family units do exist and other opportunities do exist elsewhere. Um, this was really just we were focusing on where we saw not only the greatest number of multif family housings, but also the number of vacancies in those units to see if there was a way to be able to stimulate the renovation uh of those properties to get them back into full use right now where they'd lost their grandfathering prior and had to be treated as a single family home and go through the full process with that. Uh but if this was to expand or be um added as a second overlay that are not contiguous but in a different area of the city or anything like that, I think it accomplishes the same goal in the end. That real like I said the the idea that we had going into this was focusing on where do they currently exist coupled with where are the greatest number of vacancies in those that existing area and that heat map that we had if you will. Uh so that's really why we looked into that. But it's

again for any of those things nothing that I would be opposed to. Um, and to answer the question that was asked earlier, uh, what rights are there without the overlay that's there, um, if you go through the table of uses and the zoning requirements, it says based on the zones that you live in, you're allowed these items in this area, you're allowed these items by special permit in the same area or you are prohibited from doing that with your property in that based off of whatever zoning district that you're in. And right now, if you wanted to do a multif family unit and you are in a area zoned for single family, uh you require various uh relief from zoning uh through a special permit from the planning board. Uh and then some additional requirements in front of the zoning board of appeals as well. uh those can lead when you get into uh not so much the planning board requirements, that's more the easier process, but when you get in front of the zoning board of appeals, that could be closer to 50 to $75,000 in added costs onto the project when you're dealing with attorneys fees, processes, mailings, and everything else that goes there, too. Uh but so, as I've said in the presentation, what adding an overlay does is add an option. So, if you have a piece of property and you say, "I really just want this to be single a single family home and that's all I want to do with it," you have that right because the underlying zoning in that neighbor uh neighborhood is single family residential and that you can keep it there and do whatever you want with it. But if you wanted to say, you know what, it's it's land. I want to build a multif family unit, maybe have three units, rent it out, or maybe do a single family. Maybe you have a single family home and you'd like to, you know, add an addition onto it and now it's a two family. You'd be prohibited from doing that into the current zoning where this would allow you to do that with greater flexibility. Now, prohibitive again being that there are appeal processes and special permit processes and things of that nature that you could go through, but they're time and their money. So, this is really just trying to make it easier for people to have the option to go through those. Nothing is being forced on anyone. Nothing is being

taken away from anyone. We're simply just adding the option so that you can do something extra if you choose to do so with your property in the long term. Thank you, Mr. President. Any further comments or questions? Council Brooks.

Uh, thank you, Mr. President. I understand the reason for this proposed zoning ordinance. It's tied to the zoning changes being required from the state and seeks to address issues of housing availability and affordability. At first, I was leerary about how this ordinance would change the city by allowing denser residential development in single family residential neighborhoods like the one I live in. As I thought about it, I began to realize that the neighborhood I grew up in is actually rather diverse. I live on Elm Street, across from the big chair, across from the Elm Street School. As a child, the Franklin house, two doors down, had an in-law apartment where Irene Diamond lived. Two houses up the street with the Weeks, and they rented out some rooms to Miss Clasheen and Miss Meets who were teachers at Garden High School. Behind me on Chestnut Street was a house converted to a two family and two houses further up Chestnut Street was an apartment house where Miss Alrich and Miss Southerntherland, two other Garden High School teachers, lived. So I guess what is being proposed here for housing makes sense. My concern with the current proposal has to do with parking requirements, an issue that I understand has become a little difficult for the zoning board. This ordinance seems to be easing the parking space requirements within the zoning ordinance. For example, section two, small homes, requires one space per three units. Section three, accessory dwelling units, requires one space only if located more than one half mile from a transit stop. And section seven changes from one space for one bedroom and two spaces if two or more bedrooms to one space for dwelling unit. I did a little research on gardener over

the past 50 years regarding vehicles and population. I guess most of us understand that the population in gardener has hovered around 20,000 people over the past 125 years. While the population has been spreading out from away from the center of town, it has not gotten particularly bigger. However, if we look at the number of vehicles today compared to 50 years ago, the story is much different. In 1975, which was 50 years ago, the city had about 8,500 vehicles. Today, there are about 20,200, almost one vehicle per resident. Where are those vehicles parking? And if the population expands, where will will those new vehicles park? Parking becomes a special problem during snow emergencies when the on street parking ban goes into effect. Will these changes mean that the city is going to have to develop, build, and maintain more public parking spaces? Will the demand for public parking spaces be spread across the city rather than be concentrated in a downtown area? Should we be requiring parking more parking spaces from property owners who are expanding their rental units and thereby their business? Alas, I do not have an answer to my questions. If this ordinance were related to city finances, I would dive in and propose a solution. So instead, I will defer to the experts and ask the planning board and the community development department and the mayor to review once more the changes to the parking requirements and study the consequences of what we are doing. Maybe we need to make some adjustments to the

ordinance. Maybe we need to make plans for more public parking that is convenient to more varied neighborhoods. and maybe it's not an issue at all. As we move forward, I just want us to do so with eyes open. I want us to be proactive and not reactive. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Any further questions or comments? Councelor Tibos.

Thank you, President Tyrus. I first want to thank councelor Hardurn and Mayor Nicholson for bringing this uh proposed uh zoning amendment forward. Um, someone who grew up in rental housing and who has done a lot of doornocking in neighborhoods with large amounts of rental stock in Tri City area, this proposed change in zoning is certainly a breath of fresh air to me. I've seen the current rental housing conditions firsthand. What is currently considered affordable uh in this area uh are some of the least uh well-maintained um properties out there. Second, uh, as someone who has a daughter who is fresh out of college, living at home, working a full-time job, and making the same amount annually that I made fresh out of college 26 years ago, and meeting at least a half a dozen other consu constituents who are in the same position, something really has to give, especially if we want to keep uh our kids to continue living in Gardener. Uh it is about time that we start addressing the current housing affordability crisis head on and uh bring some affordable quality uh housing options both for first-time homeowner and uh quality affordable rental housing online. We need housing developments in Gardener not just for the people that we want to move here who can afford a market rate house housing u but for the people who currently live in gardener so they can continue to live in gardener. Thank you. Thank you, Council Munos. Any further counselor comments or remarks? Councelor Harger,

this is about a year in the making. It started when I noticed an apartment in my neighborhood after sitting for many years abandoned had been bought by new owners and clearly were putting a lot of money into this. What I didn't understand was after it appeared to be done, why it continued to sit vacant. I asked and was told it needed a zoning variance because it lost its grand bar as a multif family because it was vacant for so long it now needed a special permit. To be clear, this was not new construction. It was not an a conversion. For probably a hundred years, it had been in that same spot as a multif family house. But because of our rules, the new owner, who had already put quite a lot of money into it, had to go through this process and incure more expenses. Looking around my neighborhood, I noticed other issues like this with similar properties, and much of that has been incorporated into this ordinance. Housing is expensive. Building new housing is more expensive. Across my ward has been a slog renovating multif family houses, some of which have been vacant for more than 10 years, some more than 20 years. Threearters of the apartments in the city are in my ward on either side of downtown. So, this is important to us. It is important to the fabric of our neighborhoods and is important for the city not to be in the way of their redevelopments. We need to change our rules to make investing in these neighborhoods work. To put in perspective, if there were an earthquake tomorrow that destroyed this neighborhood, our rules make it impossible to rebuild it as it was. Because in the time since many of these properties were first built, we have put so many restrictions in place that it is either legally impossible to build or cross prohibited to build. However, I don't think that means we throw everything away. We need guard rails in place to protect these neighborhoods as well. So, I've worked with the mayor's office on the details of this proposal, which I encourage you all to look at very closely, please. The most important

thing in my opinion is how we proposing this is targeted. Almost all of these changes will only impact parts of the city that are already built out as multi as multifamilies. My goal is not to change other neighborhoods, but neighborhoods that have been multif family in some cases for over 100 years should be empowered to remain that way. I think this balances our need to increase housing while maintaining local control and empowering lo local owners especially as well as developers to build but particularly to renovate. Thank you. Thank you, council. Any further comments? Council

He um I just had a couple questions real quick. Um, as far as the uh tiny homes in the build, is there um going to be um our bedment fees for that right there?

Can you repeat the question? Council, I'm sorry. Um, for like the tiny homes, things of such, are there going to be betterment fees? Oh, so it is in the regulations that we have for the city that if we are bringing water and sewer out to a new development that the developer does pay a betterment of basically the cost of us bringing the pipes out to their location. Um there are grant opportunities out there that the developer can take advantage of but we do charge that as a cost of the development. Okay. And um if I may, the other question I had was cost of the tiny homes. I know it was somewhere like around 100 150,000 I think you said. Um

but as I said during our committee meeting there are cheaper options on Amazon. Are those going to be are they subject to obviously approval of the planning board things and such if you wanted to go with one of those? So for I'm going to separate tiny homes with ADUs in the answer to that. Okay. And that for tiny homes, yes. I mean, anything is set for the dimensional requirements that are in this ordinance. So it does say the minimum size, the minimum acreage, all of that stuff. So one of your the prefabbed online versions of that that co can cost between $7,500 to $15,000 that you want to order and just get shipped to your house that way. uh for an ADU if it's under 1,250 or 900 whatever gets passed in the ordinance in the end if it passes you can do that by right if it's a tiny home you do have to meet all those other dimensional requirements that are there set forth in the ordinance so it's the language of this ordinance that would determine that

okay thank you thank you no further questions or

yes I'm going to agree on a cluster books Obviously, parking is going to be an issue even these tiny homes. So, you're talking a family, a small family who's just starting off. I believe I don't know the statistics on this, but I'm sure 75% of Garner travel to work or commute someplace else in Gardner. So, even if you have a tiny home, uh the individual, whoever it may be, the husband or wife, they might be commuting out of out of town. Someone has to bring uh the kids to daycare. So that's two cars. I believe uh when we say one car, it's not feasible these days to have one car. Even if it's a tiny home, it doesn't make a difference how many square foot it is. Most families have two cars. They depend on two cars. One to bring the kids to soccer, to school, to work, go get groceries. Uh so that is the problem. I have I I have no opposition on any uh proposal that we're doing, but it is the parking that I believe we have to take a look at and discuss that more in depth uh on that part.

Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Any further questions or comments? Councelor Matt,

I I just want to make a comment in regards to the parking um that this ordinance does allow if a person has an acre of land, they might not put 10 houses on it. They could have a parking lot with common house, common parking. So I mean, so there is flexibility within this to have parking. Whether it's right in front of your door, it may not. But if I had an acre, I could put six or seven in and then have a parking lot that's numbered like you would at any other apartment place that we have now. For example, the Gargan News, they number the parking spots for their apartments there. The other thing too I I think we have to keep in mind is our current residents do have cars. They do have driveways. They do have garages, but a lot of them use street parking. So I think we have to remember that we're not being strict with our current residents because a lot of them don't use their driveway. They don't use their garage. They park on the streets. And so it would depend on what lot was being developed that there may be street parking. And as I said, you know, they a common lot they could pull them out with the snowband. Obviously, these other people residential areas have to park put their cars somewhere during the snowb. They just don't choose to do so the other 350 days a year. So, um I I just I don't want to see parking to become the reason why this doesn't pass, but I think people have to be open-minded that um you know, the ordinance maybe, you know, needs to clarify more option, but there are options. And it's true, not everybody does drive, especially with this o where this overlay district is. It's where a lot of people walk. They use mock transportation. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further questions or comments? Hearing none, I declare the public hearing on item 1104 closed. And with that, I will now declare closed the joint public hearing. Thank you. Whatever.