Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening, everyone. This is a meeting of the Zoning and Planning Committee on August 17th, 2026. I'm Lyle Baker, chair of the committee, and I'm joined at the outset of the meeting by several members of the committee in the room and several members of the council who are not members of the committee, both of them, as well as other honored guests. We're joined by the vice chair, Councillor Wright, Councilor Goetz from Ward 5, Councilor Domovitz from Ward 4, online, Councilor Albright from Ward 2. We've also, the other department is represented by Jonah Temple, the Chief Administrative Officer here, Mr. Lawrence online, which we will always hear. This is the Director of Planning. And we also have representatives of the Planning Department in this, and I will ask them to, I'LL INTRODUCE THEM WHEN THEY COME TO TALK TO US. AND WE'RE JOINED IN THE ROOM BY MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL, COUNCILOR BLOCK, COUNCILOR ROTH, ALSO COUNCILOR MALACHI, AND I THINK THAT'S ALL THE COUNSELORS PRESENT. AND THEN WE'RE GOING TO BE JOINED BY A PROSPECTIVE APPOINTEE. SO BEFORE WE BEGIN, LET ME JUST EXPLAIN A COUPLE OF MATTERS OF PROCEDURE AND JUST THE INFORMATION ATTACHED TO THE PACKET. four individuals who are been willing to step up and assume important roles in the city and the mayor has asked them to serve and we're here to hear from them and to appoint them in another case when you have the current member of the historical commission who's the chair who's being reappointed and is a part of the background for this discussion because We're seeing a lot of developments happening both at the state and local level. As part of the agenda, I asked the clerk to provide to the members of the Zoning Board of Appeals a copy of the changes that have been recently made in the state zoning statute, specifically relating to the Zoning Board of Appeals process and how it works on variances, just because it may be not something you're familiar with. I don't expect them to be expert. We have Mr. Temple here who's from the law department, but at least I wanted to have the committee and the candidates all aware of that. Also, because everyone is assuming a role, which is an important part of public process, and we talk about process a lot, I provided to them a copy of the land use procedures guidelines that we have for special permits because THIS IS SOMETHING THE CITY COUNCIL HAS DEVELOPED OVER TIME THAT MAY BE HELPFUL TO THEM IN THE ROLE THAT THEY'RE GOING TO UNDERTAKE. AND THEN ALSO BECAUSE HISTORIC PRESERVATION IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE CITY, INCIDENTS OF THE CONVERSATION WE'RE GOING TO HAVE WITH THE REAPPOINTEE IN THAT CASE, EXCUSE ME, MR. CORNADIUS, I ASKED THAT THE CLERK PROVIDE SOME BACKGROUND FROM THE CITY WEBSITE ABOUT HISTORIC PRESERVATION AGAIN BECAUSE WE HAVE SOME relatively new password soon. I thought it would be helpful to have that as part of the agenda. What I do expect going forward in the September meeting, because there's so many changes going on at the state and some perhaps to come, Mr. Lee, who's our normal representative from the law department, but I anticipate asking him to give us a briefing at the beginning of the meeting in September, so we'll have some update on what is going on at the state level rather than get too deeply into it tonight. But I think it's important for us to understand the context within which we are operating. And we are joined by the Vice President, Councilor Kalas, KEMPLER FERRELL FROM WARD EIGHT. AND ONLINE ALSO COUNSELOR GORDON, A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE. WELCOME. OKAY. SO WITH THAT, OUR FIRST CANDIDATE IS CHRIS MARKOWICZ. AND CHRIS, WHERE IS CHRIS? OVER HERE. CAN YOU COME UP THIS WAY? I'M SORRY. I CAN SEE YOU. WE'RE BEHIND YOU. There was a one minute piece of background. There was a question about the timing of the appointments and what is the chief administrative officer has indicated and send a note to me that Mr. Markowitz could proceed tonight. All of the candidates can be voted tonight and we can pass on them at the council level. But the effective date of the appointments of the second two candidates would be deferred in order to make sure an orderly transition to the Zoning Board of Appeals because of some matters they've already got ongoing and new members can't vote on something that they haven't heard. So that's the little bit of procedure that's a little different and a copy of that memo will go as part of the report. But first, welcome, Mr. Markowitz, known to us as former counselor Markowitz. And it's a pleasure to have you back among us. And I would ask if you would like to say a little bit about your background. Your resume and information is attached to the agenda. But for those who don't know you well, it might be helpful to have you outline a little bit of your background and why you're interested in this role. And then I'll turn it over to colleagues to ask questions.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate that. Well, for starters, I served as a city councilor for six years. All the whole time I was on land use. I was on real property reuse. is the council's representative. There's always one council on the OPEB board. That's the pension and other authorities committee. And I was on the audit committee for a while. I am a CPA. I was probably the only CPA on the audit committee, which is always interesting. Listening to everybody else puzzle their ways through trying to read financial statements. It's interesting. I also worked on a couple of ad hoc things this year. I was an early February, March, I guess I was out of the country for a while, but I worked on the pension liability analysis for that and the recommendations that the mayor then took back and was able to work in agreement with the city, with the union, to basically defer the payoff date for the pension liability. That was, by the way, I'm just editorializing here, I think that has been That was a big deal. And then recently, because I couldn't stay away from this stuff, I worked on the IG. I worked as a management consultant, so I traveled a great deal in my younger days, and it always prevented me getting very involved in civic affairs. And when I finally retired from that first career, I went down into the second career of the counselor. But in between that, I actually worked on a four-year duty neighbor, a four-year that never got filled. But I learned an awful lot about both, you know, the pro forma financials, and so forth that are used to create those types of opportunities. So I guess that has been involved for a long time. Can't stay away. I know some of my colleagues probably say, why are you back? Because you were with us the first time around. But no, it's really great. Newton's a wonderful city. We are served by the department people uh got a turn at it i'm an older man uh it would be nicer to see you know younger younger people running for office and getting involved in these conditions they're going to inherit the city and the people maybe 30s is still too young there's still going to be family things and so forth but by the time during the 40s i don't see a lot more participation people so you knew i was going to talk right

Well, look, if that's the price of admission for you to come and do this, we're up for it. We're just grateful for your willingness. Given that your sentence was up to come back, it really is a great opportunity. I violated parole. Questions or comments from members of Councilor Sillings? Councilor Albright. I'm sorry, I didn't really see your hand raised. Thank you.

You want me to go first? Yes? Okay. So I've worked with Chris for many years on the council and I know the quality of his work and I am impressed by it. And I know he understands housing needs. We have in Newton. So I'm glad for that to be going on to the ZBA. And I worked with Chris when we were trying to convince Mayor Fuller and the Retirement Board to change the rate of increase for the retirement. And we were all on the same page. And I'm so thankful that finally, Chris, you must know this, that the retirement board has lowered the increase to 3.5%, which is fabulous. So I am thrilled that you're willing to take on this mantle again and do this work for the city again. And you're not in my ward, so I can't make the motion to approve, but I'm sorry that I can't do that. So thank you very much for being willing to serve.

Thank you. Mr. Ryan and Councilor Goetz.

So I have worked with Mr. Markowitz and with all his knowledge and land use and going through Riverside and the details and just really understanding it and getting into the mud on there. It's going to bring a lot to the ZBA. So I look forward for you being in the ZBA.

We had 90 conditions in that order. That was Riverside two or three, 90 conditions or 91. Every one of those takes like hours to hammer out, right? 90 conditions.

Councilor Gatz.

Well, I look forward to seeing you on the ZBA, all of the expertise that you'll bring to the table. I think of it as being specifically the financial piece of it. I think that's hugely essential in terms of being able to lead the conversation at the ZBA. um i you know i mean i sort of feel as if we're very lucky to have anybody step up you know and i'm so i feel as if it's very very exciting you know and i think that all of us are going to do a deep dive on these variances because i think you know it's going to impact and you know potentially a tool that we're all going to have to sort of learn how it's going to work you know, in context. But welcome. Thank you. And I'm very excited.

I have a question. A couple of things, just again, for the public who may not be as familiar with the Zoning Board of Appeals. It has at least three major responsibilities. The variance process and where a particular situation is the hardship and the state legislation has relaxed that standard to some degree. And we're all trying to watch that in order to, we hope, at least for myself, I have to syndicate, I hope that the ZVA does not become the first resort, but still remains the last resort to remedy a situation that is untenable for an individual property owner. Second, they review any appeals from the decisions of the building and department inspectional services commissioner, specifically relating to interpretation of law. And that was an important part of the role, as I understand it. Tempo can correct me if I'm wrong. And then any of the 40B projects that come through for comprehensive permit come through the zoning board of appeals. So it is quite substantial jurisdiction and importance And again, Secretary and colleagues, we appreciate it if you're willing to do this stuff. Can you say a little about public participation? Because that's a matter that people are interested in and how the board functions.

Well, I think the availability of the people who serve on these boards for that type of thing is critical. You know, I used to always, so I guess it comes back to, Chair, how much work you do up front and part of the be it the petitioner or be it in the butter, but everyone who's kind of a stakeholder in the petition itself to understand their position. I used to, when I was in land use, I'd like to say that I put myself in the shoes of the petitioner or in a butter or anybody else who was at a stakeholder, was a stakeholder and had petition that I would have the confidence what the regulations, what the law was that applied to it. And then I heard and considered the commentary from all people who had a stake. And that could be a whole city in some cases, but had a stake in that petition. So to me, that's public participation is being open to it and making sure. I don't think we get a city email when you're on the CPA, which is a different thing. So that's the council. So as you all know, they come in. And that's actually a good line of connection for you. So I don't know how you'd totally replace that, but I think being responsive to anybody who wants to be involved in this and certainly understanding their position. You know, so many, in fact, using the land use example, while someone being pro or for land use, you do consider a lot what you hear from the parties to the petition, and often the ability to feed back that feedback back again helps make these petitions more desirable, more implementable. So it's a dynamic process, not to use that word, but I think sourcing, you know, knowing what people are with it, what they think, and you're really a representative. You know, you listen to your people, who your constituents are. And that also allows, you know, people, they look at politicians and they say, well, they used to say this and now they say this. And I'm like, that's the nature of politics. You come in with a position, you hear what's going on, you learn about it. Your opinion should, can change, you know, and it's all because of that. But you listen, you can't just dismiss what they say. They always have, even if they're not completely informed, they always know some

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I was just going to say, Mr. Markowitz has known me since I was a child, I think, maybe a preteen. But yeah, as the tenor, as the bass who sat two rows behind me when I was a soprano, and then one row when I began a tenor at Corpus Christi St. Bernard, which is part of a nice lineage of Ward 4 counselors that have come through our church, from Molly Bryson to Counselor Gentile to Counselor Markowitz, if that means.

Counselor Coley, even though he's Ward 3.

yes and uh i'm forgetting something there's others too i'm forgetting someone um but yeah um so i'm happy to make the motion to approve uh before you do i want to recognize counselor block and he's not a member of the committee but thank you thank you chair and it is nice to see mr markowitz dive back in um

I'm curious what you think about this variance, the variance responsibility that the chair mentioned, and this transition, this change at the state level. I don't know if you've followed it that much. It's brand new. It's my understanding. STANDARD, THE CHANGING STANDARD FOR APPROVING ZONING VARIANTS.

Hiding revenue to the city's coffers is a positive thing. Those are all good things. You have to look at the downside of it. I think they all stand on their own. I will tell you one thing about that. I did look at the text and I saw also a markup of changes to it. I don't understand why the paragraph on conditions was struck. It was struck in its entirety. And I can't believe you can't attach petitions to an order. I mean, I just, I can't imagine that. So there's gotta be, you know, I did, I did reach out to, to, uh, uh, Attorney Temple on this, and I think he's saying, well, there's work to be done on this. We've got to put up your hands, I guess, with this and see how it actually works. Again, I don't think necessarily what it was anything. I think you apply, you've got regulations, you've got ordinances, you've got common sense, and you look at that stuff, and you just say, okay, is this a good deal or is it not a good deal? And I think the other thing, I didn't mention this earlier, but regarding public input, even though we don't necessarily talk about precedent when we decide these things, I think we are responsible for consistency. So if I let you overhang your porch by three feet or something because it's de minimis and nobody cares about it, somebody else comes in two months later and you decide, well, I'm not going to give you the overhang on the porch. I'm using an old example of something. That to me wouldn't be correct.

OK. Thank you. We have a motion. Anyone else from the council or allies that wish to be heard? Having heard about public participation, I'm careful here. All those in favor will say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? I'd say that's unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome to stick around if you want or go home.

I look forward to working with you all again.

Would you mind coming up? And one of the reasons we like you at the table is so that the microphone can pick you up as well as this camera. And the folks on Zoom hear what is being said, okay? Or do we need them on?

Everybody here, what do you need? Susan was loud enough. A little higher would be better. Okay.

So, Deng, welcome. And again, we have the background you have and your really quite distinguished career and we're glad you're willing to serve. Do you want to give us some, again, for the benefit of the public and others who have not had the opportunity, can you say a little bit about your background and why you're interested in this role?

Certainly. My name is Sapir Ng and during the day I work as an architect. I've been working in the work beside buildings from a variety of scales, from large scale healthcare, hospitals, life science buildings, academic buildings, commercial buildings. In the past 10 years, I've worked more in residential and some 40B buildings in Massachusetts. And for my career, US and internationally. So I work in front of community in a variety of geographic locations. And I understand that zoning regulation change and a ripple effect with the community for generations and for the residents. And it's not, you know, just, you know, just rules and it will affect their life. And My wife and I moved to Newton six years ago, and our kids go to Newton Public School, and we really loved the city. And the new public school buildings was built, and Lincoln Elliott, my kids go to Lincoln Elliott. We admire the process. And I look at CPA as in the juncture of design, regulation, and also community engagement. And so I found that this is also an opportunity for me to learn. And I'm new and I'm excited to learn the process and hope to be able to serve thoughtfully. Thank you.

Questions from members of the committee?

You said you've done some 40 V projects in Massachusetts. Like about how many have you designed?

Maybe five.

Yeah, I can. Most recently, the one I'm watching in Boston is kind of singing 40B. And I'm starting one in Mansfield, Massachusetts. And that is about it. And I also work on other variety of building types as well.

So I saw a few pictures of some of your designs, which I like. They're visually inviting and things like that. And are you able to do that in your 40p designs? Because they're usually somewhat constrained by cost.

That's a very good question. And I believe that public building, 40p doesn't need to be cheap. A good design doesn't need to be cheap. You can use more cost-effective material and can be able to design a well-designed building. It doesn't have to look cheap. We can still work within the budget and can have... For example, one of them you mentioned is the senior housing project. It's also a historic project in all of Mass. And it has won quite a few design speaks that it can here serve a bigger part, a better part, aspects.

Thank you. And being an architect, you'll bring a lot to the table for the CBA too, which will be good. Because sometimes I say, we may ask for something and then they say, well, we can't do it, but it sounds like you'll be able to say, yeah, you can do it.

And also when I look at it as in my I've been designing buildings in the past 25 years, and I look at the application. It's not looking at just application with data. And I look at how the building sits within the community, the safety, the scale. I understand that it would affect the community, how it looks. But also, on the other hand, community needs to continue to evolve. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for applying and stepping up, you know, because I feel as if the skill set that you will bring, as Councilor Wright is suggesting, is essential, you know, just in terms of the purview of architecture. I don't know how constrained you will be, you know, in terms of being able to apply. You can, yes, be additive and you can in the moment, you know, sort of make comment, but it sort of seemed in terms of other prior 40Bs, it was very it was pretty restrictive in terms of the amount that change could happen on the project. It always seemed as if the finances, other conditions dictated the outcome. It always sort of felt like that the architecture was very low, you know, on the order of things, but you sound like you're opening and hopefully in committee, you'll be able to, you know, enlighten and inform and educate, you know, other members so that then it could be applied, you know, to the in terms of the other members being able to see the project through your eyes, which would be a crime.

That's also essentially the issue because everyone has a bad place in their mouth. I don't want to see 40 feet. It's like bad buildings. And if you need to elevate, there's the design of the 40 feet.

Right. Thank you.

Chancellor Albright?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you hear me?

You're breaking up a bit.

I was just told that my internet is unstable. Can you hear me?

Now we can.

Okay, well, I will try to say. Okay, thank you. So I looked at your designs and they definitely have the wow factor to them. So I appreciate that you're bringing that to the ZBA. And you can advise our architects who come to the ZBA with a 40B project that you could do better than just plain architecture. Okay. I went to planning school and one of the things that we talked about a lot is that, you know, good design doesn't necessarily cost more than bad design. And advising people on how to really make Newton a better place with design would be a fabulous thing. contribution that you could bring to the ZBA. So I want to thank you for being willing to serve and ask you to, I know that design, as in special permits, design is really not one of our features. But you can make comments from time to time about how architects could make a design that really works well for Newton. and enhances our city rather than just kind of everyday kind of it's a lovely design, blah, blah, blah. So I hope you'll bring that clearly that talent that you have with you to the ZBVA. And I want to thank you so much for being willing to serve.

Thank you. I just want to ask the same private question both the applicant and interested parties, how you relate to those comments.

And I will look at it. In my former career, I've been sitting on the other side of the table and with the community opposition. And also, I also, in the past, I also led my community in East Boston to oppose the developer. And with my career, understand the process. And also, I've been sitting on the other side, you know, I think the key is to be able to listen to the facts. And because you can understand the community, these are real issues for them. It could affect their safety, it could affect their life, you know, their properties. And we need to understand these are real issues for people. However, we are not community advocates. uh, bad judgment. And with that said, sometimes when we are on the other side, as a designer, we move to community, they sometimes raise questions that we haven't thought about, you know, we thought, oh, I'm glad you asked. And so it's actually meeting with community, be able to listen to them and, and reach my design sensibility as well. And I think this opportunity is also helping the community to design better community and also also enrich my career as well and my design sensitivity. I'm going to ask you a question. Okay, thank you very much.

So, oh, Esther Malik.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, your, your background is very impressive. I'm curious, it sounds like With the point of views that you worked on, were you the person who would go to the hearings in these towns?

I'm part of the team.

Part of the team. So you attended them. I'm wondering if you watched Newton's EVA hearings, how they compare to other towns, because one of the issues that, you know, we hear a lot about that we can't really do anything about. is the residents who come to speak about their concerns, they feel like they're kind of the last priority. They have to, you know, they're sitting through an hour, hour and a half of presentations and initial questions, and then they get to speak and they're limited to three minutes. And I know you'll be new and one member of basically seven, five, whatever. But is there anything that other towns do differently to make people feel like they've at least got a more easy way to speak, even if it's not going to make any difference in the end.

Each tongue is different. And some of the tongues, they don't even, they mute them, you know, they don't even let them, you know, speak.

The last one. You say they mute them so they don't get to speak at all.

In the past, you go to, before COVID, you go to see the whole everyone a friend, you know, there's some community. But now there's some of them, it's more organized. What I meant is, you know, they will let you speak, you know, they control the audio. And each time it's different. And sometimes there are more community outreach, you know, they have a liaison, you know, they would reach out to community and they orchestrate, you know, they organize, they give you information ahead, you know, so you hear some of them. And so I think even though you let the community speak, it doesn't represent the entire community because people who have time to come to the meeting. And it's just a minority of numbers. And I think having a better community outreach to reach out to more people, to get solicited more, opinions before just the meeting. People might not have time to attend the meeting. So that might be a better, be a different approach.

I should mention this, the docket items, the first one was 231.26. The second is 230.26. But any other members of the council? I'm seeing some online. I will gladly nominate for approval Mr. Ning and I'll be the proxy for Ward 1. Thank you very much. Okay. Your appointment has been moved. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Abstentions? Okay. That's unanimous except for Council Oliver, obviously. Thank you very much. And you're welcome to go home or you can skip around depending on your purpose. Thank you. And finally, but not least, Mr. Capasso. This is item 229.26, appointing Dr. Capasso as So you want to say a little bit about your background and why you're interested in today?

Good evening, Mr. Chair. Hi, everyone. My name is Donnie Capasso. My family is a family business in Newton Capasso Realty. We're local property owners, managers, We almost exclusively do business in Newton, a little bit in Waltham, but Newton's always been our home base for over 60 years. We're very proud of that. I think I'll compliment especially my two other nominees tonight as the architect, the consultant and CPA, and I'm a builder and developer too. I think it'd be a nice mix. I'm excited to serve Newton again.

Thank you. Thank you. Questions from the committee? That's all right.

Yes, thank you for serving. And again, like you said, you have more real life experience in building and things like that. And I think the three nominees complement each other. I think that's a very nice job that the mayor did to get all those coming together. So thank you.

Put together a project by yourself. Um, that's very good.

Yeah. Thank you. Um, as with all of you, thank you, because I think it's really critical that, you know, and I do commend our mayor for having, you know, figured out that touching each of these areas of expertise. And I sort of see this as, you know, essential, you know, so I really sort of feel as if all of you guys together are really going to do a great job, you know, in terms of being able to evaluate projects and ask the right questions. So, again, thank you. You know, I'm just very supportive of this idea of mixing it up, you know, on the ZBA. And I've seen you quite a bit, you know, in the sense of being participating in local governance for quite a while. So this is wonderful. This is great.

And I'll just ask the same question about your sense about public participation. You want to say your... Sure.

I really think it comes down to respect. You have to respect your neighbors, the people around you. Whenever I've done a development, I've personally knocked on every door within a quarter mile. We're not always going to agree, but it's their home. It's the most personal thing. You need to respect their opinion. And I think just because they do or don't want something makes them mad or anything. You need to show people respect and hear what they have to say. And generally, when you do that, it seems to be much easier. Okay.

Councillor O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm really glad that we have someone with actual development experience not the architect, which I love having an architect, but someone who's dealt with, you know, let's build this building. Let's see how the people are going to deal with it. Let's work with the neighborhood to make it work. I'm glad that we have someone with that kind of experience on the ZBA. So I really thank you for being willing to serve. I think that's an important aspect of the project. Um, and, um, You know, bringing that reality to when a developer says, I can't do this, or I can do this, but I would love to help you out, but I can't do this. You have the reality of how much things cost. So I'm so thankful that we have that experience on the ZBA. And I'm going to be supporting your candidacy.

Thank you.

So anyone else?

professor also in world four so i'll wait till then thank you um nice to see you again thank you um you attended the last zba meeting um as a kind of witness i suppose to one of the proposals um and the What do you think about the zoning variance standard that the state seems to be trying to make a little easier? And how do you think that played out in the meeting that you attended?

riverview ave uh for the walmart facility and it's funny because i haven't been i think i've never been in front of the cba in at least 10 years i worked for my family and then the my appointment is you know notified i have business in front of it but it was very unique it uh perhaps it didn't lower the bar it certainly moved it a place i don't think we know where it's gonna In that case, it wasn't housing, but it's very clear because I believe in all that text, it mentions housing several times. But Chris Markowitz said this is exactly right. I think a lot is gonna have to unfold before we really know, but a lot different things can now be considered

Okay, I think that's it. We got everybody? All right, you're on.

I'm happy to make a motion to approve Mr. Capasso's nomination to the CDA.

Wonderful, thank you. All those in favor will say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? The ayes have it again. Thank you very much. You're welcome to stay or go home. Everybody's at your preference. You'll be over here again in the city hall.

Thank you for your service.

OK. And the next appointee is a reappointment. And I'd like to ask Mr. Cornelius if he'd be willing to come sit with us. As opposed to our prior appointees, Mr. Cornelius is willing to come back for a return engagement, which the mayor did not do so easily. But just because I'm somewhat biased in favor of someone who It's both a lawyer and a biker. I just wanted to say that.

I do combine two. I do my tour of the agenda by bike most times. But we'll join me sometime.

We'll tell you. I have a chair of the Bicycle Subcommittee of the Environment Committee of the Boston Bar Association back 35 years ago. We had... Anyway, so you know what you're getting in for, yet you were willing to re-up. So do you want to say a little bit about what brings you to this role again?

Sure. My background, unlike the people who actually have real skills, I'm a lawyer by training. Back in law school now, a few decades ago, I was actually studying to get my law degree and a master's in short prison. Come graduation from law school, I got a great offer from a firm and still a few credits shy of getting that master's degree. And then about 10 years ago, I was having a discussion with a neighbor who was on the Historical Commission about whether the Historical Commission should be ruling on a fence. I said, that would be very weird and indiscreet. And he was like, what are you talking about? I was like, I actually studied preservation law. And so he wrote me in to join the Historical Commission way back when. And I have not found an exit yet, so.

I should note that you're also volunteering in election capacities, too.

That's what I was before here. Make sure our election runs smoothly on the 1st of September. Everybody knows we have an election on September 1st.

A precious opportunity for us all. So questions from members of the committee? Councillor Wright.

I might be stealing Councillor Malachy's question. Well, the three of One of the things that your committee always complain about. There's all these tear downs coming in. You would like the city council to do more to reduce it. That's something I'm looking at. But what are your ideas on how we can help reduce

The main incentive for something to get torn down the city is because you can build something larger. Turning down something and putting up something the same size probably does not make a whole lot of economic sense. Definitely not. There we go. So the issue comes into is you have these, the case in point is going to be Oak Hill Park, right? The traditional, you know, the original small homes are being torn down and something much larger is being built there because the zoning allows something much bigger to be there. I saw, I talked to a realtor offhand about this. They said, yeah, the lot goes for $900,000 or a million if you've already torn down the house for the process there, that there's no value whatsoever to the building there because you build something so much larger. So as we look at our zoning, as you go across the city and where people are complaining about something being torn down, something bigger going up, it's because zoning allows something much bigger to go up. So to extend something is up zoned. We're seeing challenges with that specifically. I mean, that's the city council saying it should get torn down. And I think, you know, there was a process looking at our resident, you know, we spent a lot of time and a lot of heartache over the village centers. Before that, I believe there was some work happening to focus on the areas in the city where we want to have single families and 2,000 houses and try to have the zoning that are matched closer to what's actually been built. I think a lot of our zoning was put in place. land is just so much more expensive now, five, six decades later, we want to max that out. So I think it would be great if city council would go look at those areas and say, we should have revised zoning for these areas to match closer to what's actually there on the ground. To the extent that's what you want. Obviously, if it's something you want, something denser, it's only to be denser.

Thank you. Councilor Gadsden and then Councilor Albright.

Thank you for serving. I think it's always important to, you know, because at this stage you have institutional knowledge. You've watched the historic commission evolve, you know, over time. I, you know, I sort of feel as if I attend quite a few of the meetings, and I sort of feel that there's a huge disparity, you know, between what is allowed, especially with the VCOD on specific parcels. And then, you know, in terms of there's a conflict, you know, between the goals of preservation. And I think that it is a difficult position for the Historic Commission to be in, because I don't think that the prerequisite work has been done in terms of identifying parts of the city that need to be preserved. One of the mandates or one of the, you know, because I went through the ordinance today in terms of historic preservation for the commission. And I sort of feel as if, and this is bandwidth and this is more the interface of like whether or not the commission members even are capable of doing the preservation work. you know i think it needs to be um like historic surveys and identifying specific areas and streets of the city that really merit preservation um and i do think that i wish we could do this work i think in terms of the village centers we need to identify the significant buildings you know that identify the village you know and i think this work needs to be done Because I think that we're in this conflict. And so there is a problem. And it's something that we both in zoning and planning and historic need to work to. And this is a huge big problem that we have, you know, because again and again. We've got the competing interests. We have the state development and wood can be permitted on that law, but yet the lack of understanding of what the historic value is of those parcels. So I do think that it's not on you and it's not on the commission, but I really would like to see more members of the of the commission have the preservation background and expertise so that then they can educate other members of the commission but that's not you're the leader you know in the sense of being you know the elected um you know head chair of the committee but i do feel as if there's quite a work a lot of work and i'd like you to speak to a little bit to this because i sort of feel as if you're conflicted i know you know but i also feel as if This is such an onslaught of demolition. I can't fathom being in that room every single month because it's just so much demolition.

You used to be a regular attendee. You used to talk all the time.

It's a catalogue for me because it's like... I'm here.

I've seen Mary Lee's here. Mary Lee's always here. Yeah, one of the successes I've certainly seen from the VCOD is the MRT, that allowing to preserve it and add on, I think it's been wildly successful in getting units. It actually moves stuff along, whereas I think it has not been a lot under the actual VCOD coming in on its own online yet. There's a couple of projects in the work. They tend to be bigger scale. So we have some issues around sort of financing goes along with that, compared to other things.

Yeah.

And it's been hard to get qualified people. There's not a lot of people who live in the city who have the background preservation and want to do it. We have, there's an issue, we've run into issues with architects because most of the architects that are interested in it work in small shops in the area. And I know there's one case, the State Ethics Commission said you just can't do it. And basically, your name is on the architectural farm to your firm can never come for the Commission, while you're serving on commission even even recuse it was not enough so we've had some issues that.

Do you have any thoughts in terms of going forward. For direction or for priorities for the historic district, you never the historical Commission.

HAB-Jacques Juilland- I don't have any particular priorities, so you know we did a work with a concert baker and console right redoing the landmark ordinance and the demolition delay ordinance several years ago. HAB-Jacques Juilland- One thing to think about that I brought up there and the city council dog was what's the right range for the demolition delay to come into play. HAB-Jacques Juilland- In terms of how long the delay should be and how far back it goes right now is for anything more than 50 years old. Even lawyer math tells me that's 1976, which most of us would not hopefully think of it actually being historic. And so whether that's the right scope as well, too. And that was discussed several years ago when it got revised and we kept it 50 years. We kept it as a 12 month delay.

Do you think, just one last question, do you think there's any benefit in terms of adding six months to each of the delays?

There's some huge pros and cons to that. The demolition really serves really two purposes. One is for the most extraordinary ones. It gives you time to mobilize, to take more extraordinary efforts. But it's something that things should be eligible for landmark and gives you time to do that process. The other is to create incentive to renovate as opposed to do the demolition. Partial demolitions you can deal with. expeditiously, uh, full demolitions could slow down. Um, so there's the incentive aspect of it. The downside to it is, you know, you have an 18 month delay. That means there's a house sitting unused in the city, surrounded by construction fence, not being maintained, uh, and not being home to a new family and not being on tactful for an extra six months as well. balance there. The question is, is it going to create more of incentive? I think it would, it might most likely would do would just reduce the sales price. Someone's finally selling their home and now the developer or the next person is going to say, well, I can deal with the demolition delay. That's six extra months of carrying costs. I'm going to give you X minus X now, instead of some larger amount. And for most people that's, that's their retirement money right there. And that ends up taking some of that chunk away. But the same way we like preservation, we like doing it. So there's a tough balance there on the perturbation side. Yeah, that's good. It's more likely to do more preservation, but there is a negative impact of that as well.

That's why we get paid such a big amount of money. You get paid more than I do. That's what I'm talking about.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Mr. Cornelius, I want to start by thanking you for being willing to do all the work. When I look at the agendas that you deal with at every meeting, I can't believe that you managed to work your way through those agendas. So it's an amazing amount of work for very well for no pay. So thank you for that. But my question really Your answers to the questions that have already been asked show that you have a real understanding of what's going on in Newton with development, and that is invaluable. But my question has to do with an interesting project that we just had. It was Brookside. 60 brookside which came before the commission and you gave them a waiver of demolition because you like their um you like their design and you fit in with the neighborhood and so forth and i i frankly i appreciated that and i agreed with that but That project had to come before the city council for a special permit. And it was denied because it required a super majority. And you mentioned our zoning. So there are instances, I think.

I understand. We just want to try and get him through the process. We can talk about their zoning policy in more detail, but can you focus on?

Can you talk about the special apartment versus historic preservation sort of back and forth? Yes.

This is the one that's still along. We had an extensive discussion with the council about this. I'd like to keep our conversation moving forward.

So let me see if I can ask you a question that has more to do with what. So you clearly, the Historic Commission had a sense for what would work on a site. And I've seen many meetings. I don't come to all the meetings. But I've seen in the ones where people ask for a waiver, I've seen the way you put a lot of energy and expertise into deciding what could work if the waiver was shortened and you can build X instead of Y, or you don't have to wait the full year. And I guess what I'm saying is what helps you make those decisions? I mean, you knew what that project was going, it's not about that particular project. It's about any project. You know what is being proposed to you and you know what's going to happen in the future to make a project happen. So what are the things that go into your decision-making as a commission to give that kind of a waiver that allows a project to have the delay of a full year taken away? How do you decide that?

HAB-Jacques Juilland- yeah I mean certainly one thing that that's in my mind, I think, many of the Commission members mind is it's a demolition delay. HAB-Jacques Juilland- So if we just deny a waiver application, the applicant just wait out the additional months and do whatever it is they want so oftentimes you know person not always looking for the perfect. good enough that this is better than what they could do otherwise to go along with that. They make an attempt to sort of mitigate the loss of the existing structure by trying to take into the context of the neighborhood and nearby houses. So it sort of fits into that general context that goes a long way towards that. It's really difficult when you have sort of the sore thumb being proposed that doesn't quite fit in. the area. You know, we try to avoid taking into account sort of necessarily the number of units or that other aspect to go along with it, as long as it has sort of the architectural and historical features. appropriate for construction.

Okay. Councilor Malachy, I have, and then Councilor Farrell. Yeah. Thank you. We've got other people in other businesses to do, so I'm going to encourage people. Yeah.

Thank you. Can I call you Douglas?

You can call me that. It's fine. Can you call me Douglas? I think I'm in trouble. No, that is fine.

Call your mom. So... HAB-Masyn Moyer- That's the right correct she did steal my main question, but I wonder if you can elaborate a little on. HAB-Masyn Moyer- What measures the City Council could take in terms of starting with zoning. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Would. Limiting if they are help would change in the other. I'm going to suggest, you know, you say that right.

You get some more coming up. I think it's the idea of more of a pattern zoning that this is sort of the size of what we aren't in there. The issue is, if it works great to sort of keep the same size. If all the lots are the same size. We don't have a lot of that. And so you end up that the F. A. R. Ends up just being. or subdivision at some point in time or most of the house split to life.

Yeah, so I agree FAR isn't sort of the entire solution, but it seems to be part of the solution along with things like setbacks. I wanted to ask you about at multiple meetings, I've raised the issue of this house that somebody wants to develop and wants to tear down. It never hit the market. Nobody wants to live in it ever got a chance to buy it. And you say, we can't consider that. I learned recently from a comment on a Boston Globe article about this swastika house that Stockbridge actually has a provision that does that. Their words are, well, first, The planning board may, after public hearing, conclude no reasonable likelihood that a person is going to buy it and preserve it. Or for at least 12 months, the owner has made continuing bona fide and reasonable efforts to locate a purchaser willing and reasonably able to preserve the ability and restore the subject building. And that such efforts have been unsuccessful. And as we talked about appraisals and stuff like that. So it seems to me that One of the problems is that developers just factor in our 12-month delay into their business plan, and it's next in the queue after they do the one that they're working on now. Whereas if there had to be, if it had to be on the MLS, be on Zillow, they could very well get offers.

You mentioned that- I'm going to suggest that, again, that's a policy conversation we're going to get into. I'd prefer this to focus on.

I would like the applicant's thoughts on that.

Is that article referring to a demolition delay?

Yeah, it's the demolition delay, yeah.

That sounds stricter than most things I've seen. I would refer to, Joan, it's still hanging out there as to whether we can take into account who owns the property or

There are alternative ways that some communities have done that. So I guess you work with the ordinance you're given, really.

Yeah. I'm trying to think, how can we make our ordinance better?

Yeah. Again, the downside is you force this additional process. I agree. If developers come in to do it, they take into account that I'm going to have to have these carry costs during the demolition delay period. If you force some other additional process in there, again, I think that ends up being built into the

I'm not sure that's necessarily.

Let's not get into that. You've asked this and you've given it. But I want to focus on, again, just getting a chance to have you talk about public participation. We've asked everybody, but Ms. Gordon, excuse me, Councilor Gordon is on. I see her hand up. So I want to let a chance to recognize her.

Thank you, Chair Baker. Just I wanted to follow up on something that Councillor Albright asked you and I just wanted some clarification, Mr. Cornelius. You were saying that you take into account the project that's going to be done to replace a teardown and how you think that fits into the neighborhood. Did I hear that correctly or I just wanted you to clarify what you were saying.

When they come for a waiver of the demolition delay.

Okay, so in neighborhoods where there's been a waiver, then the project that's gone up in its stead, you have looked at how you feel that that fits into the neighborhood in terms of its historical context and its architecture?

If they've come for a waiver, oftentimes the project will just wait out the demolition delay and we never see what's proposed.

Right, but if you waive the delay, you are taking that into account. Is that correct? I just wanted to understand what you were saying.

Yeah, the standard around the waiver that we use is, does it mitigate the loss of the structure, which is, does it take into account the architectural historic features of the existing structure and or the neighborhood nearby?

And do you feel, seeing what's going on in Newton, that that's working right now?

Again, a lot of projects weighed out the delay.

Yes, I'm asking for the ones that you have waived. Have you followed up and looked at what's been built? And do you feel like that process is working in terms of we're getting what it is that we would like?

I can't say we're always getting what we like. The ones that come through, I think the process works well for some cases and it doesn't work well for other cases. There's a lot of stuff personally that I don't particularly think looks great, but it's not always my decision.

Yeah, no, I just was trying to understand the whole process and sort of the outcomes that we're seeing. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you very much. But I'm going to withdraw my request to speak. I think a lot of what I'm hearing and a lot of what needs to be considered is not your decision, so that you can be helpful. in helping the council do its job of trying to determine what we want to see the city look like, and then say to you, this is what we want you to do. I happen to live in a ward that has many more sore thumbs than we ever hoped to see. And the demolition delay doesn't work. I don't believe. I don't see very, I've seen very, very few instances where this ends up with a landmark case. And I honestly don't know what, when you do a demolition delay, what you would really like to see happen. But I don't think that's the conversation I'm going to hear. And I think it really behooves us as a council to sit down and seriously discuss what do we want? and make the ordinance work for you. So thank you for being here and thank you for your participation.

I have a question I've asked the others just about public participation, the role of public participation in the historical commission.

The other benefit I see to the demolition delay is most of the parts of the as a right. So this is the only time that the neighborhood has a chance to express their opinion about what is happening with that particular project. And it's generally one or two meetings to address that. I think I do a good job getting public comments in with the entire process. Welcome. I tend to let people go longer than some other people might like to go with that. But again, this is sort of the one opportunity for it to happen. And I think certainly a lot of our applicants are often not represented by a lawyer in this. And it takes some hand-holding to get them through the process and understand what's happening and the procedure that goes through this.

Any other questions from anybody from members of the council?

Related to public input, I appreciate that you bring some things to NHC that you say you're not sure about, but you want them to have a chance to look at it. But that's part of the process of you and Mr. Lewis, the staff person, sort of weeding out the things that you think are not of interest. And I'm could you talk a little bit about how you decide because I mean long ago before I was even involved in anything but trees I it happened to the house across the street from me on Larkin Road suddenly it was being you know taking out the sewer and being demolished and I didn't get any notice because it did not meet the threshold for whoever was running the NHC back then to bring it To commit and it was you know staff approved and. it's true when something comes to the nhc it's people's opportunity to comment on what would otherwise be a by right project, but if it never comes to the nhc they don't get that chance. So how do you decide which is going to make the cut?

Right. There was a delegation by the full commission or the chair and a member of the staff to make a determination of application. It's clearly not historically significant. So the two standards on the ordinance is, does it have historical significance? And that's either by itself or in the context of the area it's in. And then once it passes that standard, then comes the commission. We do the properly preserved determination by vote there. So we do try to weed out some of the ones that seem very clear. Nothing's going to happen to it. It's certainly not a, there can be some differences of opinion over it, but we try to match that, match that in that way. So, and I'll strive to just keep the agenda a little more manageable. We're up to 20 items next week, which is a long night.

Yeah. I mean, I think some of those old garages, I can understand those, but I, And it's probably, it was probably before your time when this house across the street from me, it was a 1940 something 50 Cape in an intact street of capes.

And, you know. The point, I guess, to be has that the chair has a role in specifically and in assisting the commission shape its agenda to figure out which items are going to come before it and not which are don't pass the initial screen and So that's an important role that you have. And I think it's been articulated by the counselor from Lord Tree. Any other comments or questions? If not, Mr. Cornelius, you're in West Newton.

I move forward. Ms. Cornelius for the Newton Historic Commission for approval. For reappointment.

Thank you very much. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? The ayes have it. Thank you very much. And I want to express my appreciation to all the candidates tonight and especially also to the members of the planning department staff and the public who have been willing to participate in the conversation as observers because I think part of the value of these conversations is to educate us all about some of the issues that we're going to be addressing as a committee coming forward. So I think it's important to have a sense of a little bit of the of people in the process as well as the institutional arrangements. So I think we're ready to move on to our next item. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. Is your chance. Come on. OK. Thank you very much. So now we want to move to item 5726, which is request for discussion and ordinance amendments to dimensional controls aligning use and zoning. And this, I think, we have representative of the planning department here tonight. And I want to welcome all of you to please come to the table where you can be heard and seen.

Can you say that to that list? Yes.

So we're joined by Nora Colello and Amanda Wolf, both respectively ahead and definitely long range planners. And we're delighted to have you here to help us through this ticket one more time. There's an extensive presentation, which I appreciate the members of the department putting together, which is a memorandum and a copy of their slide deck. But we have got that. But this is one where so much of the work that went into this was site-specific. It would be helpful if you would still take us through it slowly but carefully, just because people will want to, I'm sure, especially counselors from other areas will want to know exactly what you're talking about. So who's going to be the lead presenter?

We're sharing duties tonight.

Somebody's got to talk first.

It's Amanda's debut at that. So she'll take the lead here, but I will.

I guess we should all applaud.

It's your first speech. I'll just help add some context for the work that was done.

We're also joined by the planning director. Do you want to sit at the table with us?

Hey, I'm actually just observing.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Okay. All right.

So I do want to acknowledge I obviously just got here. So I wasn't, didn't have the opportunity to partake in the earlier conversations, but so just bear with me, but by all means, HAB-Masyn Moyer- interjective questions as we go so guys, this is discussion of ordinance amendments to dimensional controls aligning use and zoning. HAB-Masyn Moyer- we're going to begin with a background and scope of analysis and then we're going to go into the individual city wide parcels that we looked at outside of momentum to build on the conversation you've already had. And then lastly, Laura is going to talk about some possible special permit criteria that would be helpful in conjunction.

Just let me just mention, the clerk, we are going to be seeing the slides so we can see them clearly, but if there's a question that comes up or somebody raises their hand, we want to know that we need to fill out a permit. It needs to be done. Okay.

Thank you. So starting with a little bit of background, I know at least for me, it feels like June was somehow ages ago and we're already in August. So at the June 22nd meeting when this was last discussed, we focused really on the commercial areas in Nonanta where the zoning extends into predominantly residential areas and where A there was a majority of the parcels of this nature and B, there is a kind of clear delineation between the commercial area and the more residential side streets. And from that meeting, we proposed three kind of options, rezoning individual parcels in that area, adding a special permit criteria regarding contextual massing, and then looking at additional zoning language changes. The committee, after I'm sure you all recall, great discussion, came to the consensus that we would be moving forward with examining the commercially zoned residential uses throughout the city as a next step because we had looked at Nonantum, but there were parcels that were outside of Nonantum, they were just less clustered. That's where we are today and we have quite a few slides to go through on that front that Amanda will be presenting on. And then we also were directed by the committee to circle up with our counterparts in current planning and the law department to explore special permit criteria. So I will speak to that after the city-wide personal analysis.

There we go. Oh, there we go, it's on a delay. So in order to look at all of the parcels in the city that are so we use the same criteria that was using momentum so residential uses of 123 units that are in commercial zones. We first just did a basic observation, what are the uses in that neighborhood what are the heights what zoning districts are providing those parcels that are residential zone right now. what are the age of the structures, and their relation to the surrounding area, such as is there a high traffic corridor nearby? And then from that, we looked at recurrent themes and patterns that came from that basic observation. These are ultimately all the criteria we looked at. That being said, if we went through all of these for every single parcel tonight, we could be here a long time. So we're going to focus on a high level HAB-Masyn Moyer- Things that were notable in each neighborhood, but just to give you a sense of what we looked at first was context. So what are the primary uses in that area. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Are there other distinct neighborhood features that impact things historic considerations. So is it in a historic district or is it in sort of property which would change the purview that it's under Um, does it reflect historical patterns? So like the idea of the corner store that serves the neighborhood, you know, is there a reason maybe it was once zoned commercially, even though it's now residential. Distinction between zones. Is there a clear boundary between commercial and residential or is it more mixed? Does it have a buffering purpose? So in some cases you'll see that maybe it's a, um, commercial area that buffers a residential area from a highway or more intensive uses. Redevelopment potential, we're not here to analyze what will happen if it's redeveloped, but we will point out if we've already seen redevelopment under the current zoning requirements and what that looks like. And then what are the heights? One thing I will note is that Our ordinance is a little unusual in that we recognize half stories in residential uses, but we don't recognize it in commercial uses. So we did base those commercial uses on observation. We didn't have like an exact number to pull on that. And then lastly, if it were to be re-zoned, what is the nearest residential district that it would naturally be grouped into?

What a homework.

Starting off with a big assignment. So we talked about state law changes a lot, and law will be providing much more detail on that. But one thing we did want to make sure is, do any of the current changes that were in the state budget bill outside sections impact this docket item? And ultimately, we believe that this would still be a valid means to move forward. The distinct detail about nonconformities to recognize under the new protections is it doesn't add protections for nonconforming uses. It just adds protections for nonconforming structures. That being said, while the new laws do allow nonconforming structures to go beyond the dimensional requirements, it does not allow it for height and setback. So any changes we make to this, the height requirements of the new district would apply. You wouldn't have any additional protections under the new law. Does that make sense?

I know we're... We're all going to have to go to school.

Yeah, I think the kind of key takeaway is we were like, Does any state law change make all this work moot? And I think the conclusion we came to is this is still a worthwhile endeavor. Any zoning change that we would make would be impactful.

Much better sounds nice. So with that, we did want to just give a high level overview of if you were to rezone, what would those dimensional requirements be? So in all cases, the parcels are starting off in the Business 1 or 2 districts. And we then polled, OK, what are those abutting districts to these parcels? And that only came out to MR 1 through 3 and SR 1 through 3. So we didn't look at districts that weren't already abutting these parcels. The main takeaway with this is that, I just want to make sure I'm So the main takeaway is that rezoning to any of these districts that you see on the screen from the BU district would increase the by right story limit by a half story. That being said from rezoning from BU one to any of these districts, the story limit would remain unchanged. And if you were rezoning from BU2 to any of these districts, the special permit story limit decreases by one. So in some cases, you're decreasing the special permit allowance. And otherwise, you're actually increasing the by-right allowance. That all being said, stories do not necessarily.

Just to clarify that point, In a residential zone, you're two and a half stories, right? Is that what the right band of all? Correct. And you're talking about as bright. In a business one, they're two and a half stories in a business one, right? Or is it?

Two stories.

Two stories only. So the blue is by right.

Yes, sorry. I should have explained it that way. So blue is by right. Your green is a special permit.

Now I understand it better. Okay. So the basic point is that in a business one, you're limited to two stories, but you can go up to three by special permit. In the residential, you're limited to two and a half and you could go up to three by special permit. So there's a bigger increment in a business one by special permit, but not by right. And then in business two, you're still at the two story, but you can go even higher. You can go up to a higher number by special permit. So that's the difference.

And roughly what's the, I mean, BU1 percentage, mostly like 80% BU1 and 20% BU2. There's a lot less BU2 than once.

We have it labeled just off the top of my head as a guess. It's more BU1 than BU2. Oh yeah, by a lot. But yeah, the main takeaway here is that as we consider rezoning, if the goal is to reduce the height allowance, we would just want to be careful because in some cases you could be increasing the buy-right allowance if you convert a business to a residential zone, which is a bit counterintuitive, which is why we wanted to make sure that was highlighted.

Somebody once said a side effect is the primary effect. You hadn't anticipated.

Very wise, yeah.

So related to that, we also wanted to address height limits, because the way height is measured in our ordinance means that you can have a two and a half story structure and a three story structure that look very similar from the outside. So this comparison changes it slightly. Overall, the same patterns. But you will see on our ordinance, we have more allowances in the residential districts if it's a sloped roof versus a flat roof. So that's what the flat lines versus the triangles are depicting. And the main takeaway with this is that rezoning to any of these residential districts from BU1 or BU2 may, or sorry, increases the by right height by six to 12 feet. Interesting. One will be okay. And the special permit height decreases or stays the same. In other words, rezoning to residential may not always decrease height.

So you're saying it increases it by 12, six to 12 because of the slope.

Just in general. Yeah, just in general. But it doubles to quadruple the FAR. going from BU to any other residential. So the volume of the house on the lot greatly comes down when you zone it.

We'll get to that, but I think what you're trying to say is let's take the dimensional controls that are not, that were still available to us under state law and say, what do those variables do, right?

This is just comparing the two zoning districts in terms of height as you consider rezonings.

Yeah, it's one of those you could look at in many different aspects, but given that height was one of the conversations, we just wanted to start with that, and then we're happy to present other factors as well.

The point of the slide is that the sloping roof has an impact?

The point is that the buy-right potential, if you were to rezone from BU to residential increases in height, whereas the special permit potential decreases in height.

Sloped or flat.

yeah okay so it doesn't matter yeah we just want it to be technically accurate in terms of pointing out this residential if i don't have the ability to get a high increase in special permits that's one fixed kind of point of work yeah i do in the business and this is again high level i think if when we get to it if there's interest in rezoning we can talk about that specific case and high-level takeaway that it's not necessarily straightforward in terms of business zone is greater in height and residential zone is less in height.

Could I ask a question?

I'm trying to understand the context. What is it?

You're breaking up

Can you hold your question and we'll come back to it?

I had that issue where that was, okay, it helps me understand, but I can wait.

Well, no, but we want to just respond to your question if we can understand it. Just say it again.

So the Clinton Road height, it was a BU zone and it ended up being a house. Do you remember, Nora or Amanda, how high that building was?

I don't. I don't know if Deputy Director Wewell is still on. I will just make the note that a significant issue with the Clinton height was the regrading which the committee addressed last term in terms of changing the height measurement and the retaining wall allowances that the height measurement in that how we measure height starts from original grade or proposed whichever is lower which was not the case um previously so it wasn't it wasn't an issue of this that's displayed on this chart it wasn't one of these issues

I can pull it up, but this is Katie. I do recall the project did obtain special permit relief to exceed the maximum amount of stories. I think it was three stories and I just don't remember the corresponding height. I can try to locate that and follow up.

Okay. That would be useful as we understand all of this in the context. Thank you, Katie.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Okay, so carry on.

Yeah.

One thing I will clarify with this. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Is that in this case height limits are the same for by right and special permit or that Mr one through three and the SR one through three. That's why they're depicted in green because there's no difference between the separate permanent by right so PB, Harmon Zuckerman, She just draw back to the last slide for a second. It looks very different when you look at it from a story perspective, but then when you look at it from the height limitations, it poses a slightly different story.

And I believe Director Fehr found the height, it was 35.5 feet.

No, you're talking about Clinton. Yes. Okay.

So now we're going to go into the citywide parcel analysis. And again, this is residential uses that have one to three units in commercial districts. One thing I will also point out is height is obviously not the whole story. It's also context. So the other thing we're looking at is does commercial zoning make sense for that neighborhood? And so that's more what we're going to look into for this section. Because we looked at so much criteria, we tried to simplify, mostly for our own brains, but also for yours, where we came up with a traffic light system where if it's a reason that rezoning may be beneficial, we've used a green circle. If it's a reason to be cautious about rezoning, It's yellow. And then if it's a reason that the zoning may not be beneficial or maybe not necessary. It's in red. So we're going to start a new new in Upper Falls and Robin, which is board five So we have two parcels on Chestnut Street just North of Boylston Street to put it into context. This is the Boylston Street overpass. So where the bridges.

Oh, it's jumping ahead.

Okay. So overall, this is a residential area. However, it does have a buffering purpose in that even though these two parcels on the end are currently residential uses, if it were to become commercial, it wouldn't necessarily be an unnatural fit just because most residential uses wouldn't want to be directly abutting the overpass anyway. I will say I should have started this with this, but none of the neighborhoods stuck out to us as needing rezoning the way Nonantum did. They didn't meet that same criteria of commercial zoning clearly extending into a residential use.

Talk about each one. Okay. Okay.

So this one. There's no other You know business last right there. It's all residential. So I couldn't see changing this to residential because there's, there's no be last whatsoever. I mean, some of the other streets. They're busier streets or whatever and like Adam Street and you have a mix, but there's no there's no mix here. It's all residential

It's okay. You can comment. Again, we just want to get through the slides and then come back to these.

These two parcels, the proximity to Route 9 is really difficult. But I was trying to identify these two parcels actually are not considered part of the historic district. All the rest of the parcels in this conversation are. So you know, these were the one to the two that stood out in terms of it, but you can see this 1295 is not it's a is sold for $350,000 and it's you know, like the lot itself, I think, is. It's minutiae. I mean, it's just incredibly tight, incredibly small. And it's, you know, a benefit in terms of, I would say, yes, it absolutely needs to be left as residential, these two parcels. But I don't see them evolving into commercial at any point because the proximity to the overpass and, you know, it's just a zone that is so car-centric. You wouldn't even want to walk in this area. You know, it's just incredibly difficult. And with the Wellesley Office Park, people literally do a zigzag underneath the overpass. It is so car-centric. No one's walking anywhere near that, period.

So let me just say, as a process matter, what I'd like to go through, but I'm hearing a comment from a ward counselor that this might be an appropriate area for consideration for rezoning. Is that your comment?

Well, right now, yes, absolutely.

Yep. So let's just make a note of that and then go forward, because I want to get through each of the sites if we can and then think about where we go from here. OK.

And I'll add that one thing I do want to double check, because you mentioned that it's outside the historic district. Our maps show it inside. So we'll just double check, though. It could be an error on our part, but that definitely affects the reason.

Only two in all of the parcels that you identified that I, you know, in my assistance database were not part of the district.

Sorry, just a follow-up question. So if the committee, after all your discussion, decides to rezone this, I'd like to kind of explore which residential zone makes sense because they each abut a different one. So would it just be the abutting residential zone? Would that be the preference?

Well, I was trying to figure out what they actually are right now.

They're abutting MR1 and SR2.

Okay, so, okay. So you're, you know, suggesting that, I mean, all of Chestnut on that zone is MR, correct?

On the east side of the road. On the right side, east side of the road is MR. And on the other side is SR. Yeah, but this lot is literally a dock.

Definitely, but I think the whole... That little one?

Yeah.

We need to give the department some general guidance. I think the default is that if the abutting zone is MR or the abutting zone is SR, it would make sense to extend it unless there's some positive reason not to, if you do the resumption. I'm going to try and give them some margin for them to go forward.

If I had to say, the ones on the east side was MR and the one on the west side was SR.

Okay, thank you. Anybody have more comments on this side? Okay, very good.

One clarification, did you do any historic research to figure out why these were originally zoned for you?

So I wasn't able to find that. I can definitely do more digging. I did find that the existing structures that you see are from 1950 and 1970. So compared to the neighborhood, they were redeveloped. More recently, so it's possible at one point, it was a commercial use. But I haven't found anything supporting that it's Not always easy to choose values, but I can definitely find out if that's And then across the street on the south side of nine their residential so it's just kind of weird that they just The city does have a lot of areas where you do have a residential area and then a small commercial corner. So it's possible at one point that that's what existed there. Yeah, exactly. So then we're going to move further south down Chestnut Street between Summer Street and Winter Street. And There's several parcels that, or sorry, in Sullivan Avenue, we're looking all the way down. You'll see a mix of uses. And then when you actually look at the context of the area, it is a historic mixed use village summit. So you can see the different types of buildings on this street. We have everything from a gas station, which, believe it or not, is considered historic, and to these mixed-use buildings up here, and then your traditional residential single-family residence. So it's definitely more of a mixed-use area, and it is part of the historic district, so it has additional oversight as well.

So just to be clear, where do your stoplights colors come in here?

So, for example, yellow, we said, is a reason that maybe rezone with caution. So it is already mixed use with some ground floor commercial. If you make an entirely...

I'm having trouble seeing the colors.

It goes yellow, red, red, yellow in this one. Yes.

I just wanted to figure out. Thank you.

So in general, like on Chestnut Street, and there are commercial uses on there, and it's kind of mixed use. I'm fine with kind of leaving it, just like Adams Street. And this area has a lot more protection because it's in the historic district. So it's not like they're just going to be able to tear it down and put it in whatever. So personally, in this area, I could see just leaving it.

Yeah, I'm on that page because I, you know, attended quite a few of the historic district commission meetings. And nine, I think it's 984. It's in this strip. came in as a much larger residential and was denied and then was brought down as a smaller project. So the purview of the commission is really strong, you know, in the sense of, and I wouldn't want to lose the commercial in the zone, you know, because it's from the 1830s, you know, these buildings and you just can see the The brick building right there has such incredible charm, you know, in the sense of the size of it and then it's still a commercial building. So you want that, you know, it feeds the whole street.

Your consensus, just to be clear, and this one.

Okay. One thing I also want to mention, and I think goes right to your point, is this also is a nice transition zone. There's a large office development down here and then you get to I-95. So it kind of transitions nicely from residential to mixed use to those heavier impact uses you wouldn't really want residential mixed use to.

I'm going to compliment the department here. Give us both the map and the pictures because it gives you one more sense of the map.

So now we're going to move a little further south down Chestnut Street where we have one parcel that is part of the historic district and one parcel that isn't. So I just want to flag that while we have it here. So overall, this is a continuation of that mixed-use district. So very similar conditions. The other thing is we have this larger scale three-story apartment complex. They have multiple buildings where The commercial massing kind of balances with that. The other thing is, even though 1076 Chestnut Street is outside the historic district, it does fall under the 50 year threshold. So it still would have additional review over there. It's also already has a accessory structure built behind it to make it multifamily. So we don't necessarily see a turnover of that. It's already being

Utilized fairly. So it's really hard to see in the left little map there. The last lot to the right, go down a little bit. What exactly is that that kind of seems like, oh, it's on the right side. So it's the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah. So that second rectangle is that accessory building behind that was the other one.

Oh, this one. Yeah. Oh, one more. Okay. To the right. Go to the right.

Go to the right. Right.

Right. Keep going. Keep going. Right here. Sorry. Yeah. Right there.

Yeah. So that is currently being used as commercial. So that's the other thing to consider is a rezoning would isolate that from the other commercial uses.

I'm pretty sure the proximity to the historic district here is impactful. I think it felt like the avoiding You have protections. I'm almost positive that I'm not 100% on that. It's in the audience. Okay. So the proximity of this is significant, you know, in terms of just how close it is to the district. So I'm just explaining the weightedness of it. And if in fact, because some of these buildings, you don't have a picture of that one that Council Wright was pointing out, the 390 red that's right there.

Yeah, over here.

Some of these properties have actually been redeveloped by special permit. 1092, former Councilor Yates' property, was turned into attached rocks. So it's like literally two more down. This was special permit. It's outside of the district, but I'm explaining to you that it actually has already Turned over quite a few of these properties on chestnut has turned over within redeveloped.

Yeah, but but there's keeping the business. I mean, there are those were MR zoning. They weren't using them.

Yeah, no, but what I'm going to ask you is that there's probably not the likelihood of redevelopment. is, you know, I just sort of, this one, the 10.6.

The conclusion is leave this alone.

Yeah, leave it alone. I think so. I think so.

Appreciate it.

Right. No, I'm just giving you the sense of this.

We just want to make sure we give guidance to the part.

So now we're going to move into West Newton, Ward 3. And we're looking at the intersection of river street and auburndale as you have one mixed use building and then these are all residential. And so, this gives you a glimpse of what this intersection looks like it is kind of kind of like the first example is this commercial island and a mostly residential area. That being said, a rezoning of this entire side where it is all being used as residential would entirely isolate this business. So that's something to consider in it. It is a highly visible corner compared to that might be more conducive to business. But again, we're open to your thoughts on this.

This is your ward.

Yeah, so I think this is the corner store. being used as a corner store it's not as residential it's actually well it's actually for dry cleaners so keeping that because it is a business use now just business use um and then the lots on the south of that i would um rezone to um residential now the two lots the two buildings to the far right there they're pretty new So those aren't going to get torn down anytime soon, but the other ones are a much older ones. And so if they, they would have been kind of outside of those other houses, you know, those condos that do, if they took the BU zoning and made it residential, it would really stick out being very, very different book versus what's there. So I think, I think all of it should get rezoned. But there's only a potential the two last to the left that really might have any near term rezoning. I think the other ones were built like five eight years ago yeah the.

Over here are the two parts, I believe you're referring to this structure, I think, was from 2012 or something around that had a fire, and so they build it exactly the way it was.

And then, and then the other building there, but if it was zone be you. Again, BU zoning, when you use residential, is two to four times more the FAR, a lot, lot more denser in a neighborhood that has residential houses. It's not like there's apartment buildings there.

So Councilor Roach had a comment.

First a question. So just to be clear, if they get rezoned to from this They can't, by right, get to be a little taller. A special permit can be substantially taller. And the FAR goes down. So collectively, my development opportunity, if I'm understanding this and use small words and speak slowly, the development potential goes down. Okay, so one of the things that concerns me, and this will be a theme I'll bring to these meetings going forward, is being explicit about where we stand. I have a position on this, but I want to talk about it more generally in process terms. Being explicit, this committee and ultimately the council, about how we feel, sorry about that, it was just water, how we feel about taking away that development potential from property owners and i thought that um um was very very open about this and about the balance between um what our zoning goals are and the price in particular property owners will pay for that and we may have to kind of to take property value from people in order to pursue some of these other zoning goals? Just be explicit about that. So in this instance, would we be okay devaluing these properties in order to meet these other goals?

This is contextual. Those are... two sitting in a sea of you know one and two and three family homes so from a contextual um point it's going to stay the same as what it is now versus putting something much much more denser on that lot four times more dense than what's already there right well already there's this the zoning

The zoning that would allow them.

Oh yeah what.

So, so in order to you know, so the contextual goal of my point isn't to debate whether or not we need to debate it, but my my point here is to say. If we think context is important, and it may be less at least be explicit that someone will be paying the cost to in terms of the property value. to achieve those contextual goals.

Let me just comment on that because I think it's a sensitive point and an important one. My sense of the framing, however, is that the value of these properties is a function of what the zoning allows. There's nothing inherent here. And part of what we're wrestling with is what is the appropriate zoning arrangements. And there are some situations where We may change the zoning so someone has more opportunity than in the past. We did that with the village center districts, for example. They were much more limited. We gave more and more opportunity to develop there because we thought it was in the public interest. And I think the point is that anytime we make a change, there may be some impacts on potential value. But again, the question is, what is the community interest that we're trying to serve? And we're going to have that debate regardless.

special permits can be wealth creation or wealth destruction events, right? And when we do wealth creation, we do it with where it's a win-win, right? We say the village centers, we win if they're denser. It's a win-win because if you increase the assessed value of the property, there's more tax revenue, right? In the case of a downzoning, It is not a win-win, it is a win-loss because you're doing value destruction. So there is a difference between those two things. And yes, the public interest may be there, but somebody is paying

I don't want to get into that conversation tonight, but I appreciate it. I just disagree with the framing. I have to say that.

Can I just say one thing? So the infillings are assessed on their value of the house itself and their finishes and things like that. And you get an assessed value on that. And generally the houses are sold $100,000 or $200,000 over assessed value. Now, if you, you know, want to develop it with much denser, then someone may pay more. But the less the houses in the neighborhood are going to be valued like this. So I don't think they bought this house because it's a BU zoning. And I hit the jackpot. And when I'm ready to do it, I can sell it for four times more than all my neighbors.

But the fact is, hang on folks, we're going to try and get Council Roach, I appreciate the point. There's a choice that we make, and if there's a change in the zoning that means you can build less than you could before, that affects the values. We've done that in this council time and again. The FAR that we adopted many years ago reduced the value of opportunities to build. We've taken the height that you could put on a property, and we've said you can do less of that. So we do this all the time. The question is, what is appropriate in the context? I don't think we should ignore the impacts, but I don't think we also should be... I disagree with the term taking because that has a constitutional effect.

Well, I didn't use that term.

Okay, all right. No, I just want to be clear about it. There is a change likely in the anticipated value that you might be able to sell it for if you had less opportunity, right? But that's... And that's what we're trying to wrestle our way through. And we've heard time and again from community residents about their concerns about what is the built environment of the city. But we will have that conversation, I'm sure. And simply because I know you will be part of it. So let us let us let us stipulate that that is a background music and then we can go on for a while. Okay. All right.

So I think the only other comment that I'd like to make is that we're looking at the zoning assignment as of today. And I actually, you know, in terms of when we go further into this deck, I will speak to one specific Ward 8 example. How did this law even get its designation? Because historically, it's fallacy. And historically, there was sort of a description of a specific law that may not have necessarily met that use. So it evolved to this designation. So there needs to be, and we are at the parcel level right now, a deeper dive to appreciate maybe this was a corner store originally way back when. And so that's the kind of appreciation that we will have to get to in order to understand what it is. I actually sort of see this as a misalignment, that the zoning designation may or may not suit that parcel.

I'll just say as a historical matter, we had many years ago actually realigned some zoning that were two-family where there's a whole pattern with single-family and we made the area single-family just to make it consistent.

By the way, that was my first ever public comment. I regret my comment to this day.

I won't ask him to replay it.

I want to just get clarity about where we give direction to the planning department on this.

Maybe this will help us get there by not helping at all. I guess the reason for that is that I think I'm personally a little bit of two minds on this corner. It being sort of on the edge of Ward 3 and Ward 4. It's a corner that I pass a lot. The tailor is there. It does have quite a kind of lovely historic character in this intersection. And it reminds me a little bit of the intersection that's just down the road in River and Lexington, where there's sort of a bakery and a little restaurant. We used to be the old corner store joke shop and that kind of thing. And I, you know, to the degree that we zone for what we want to see, I'm wondering what zoning allows that kind of character to be, you know, to have this, the kind of neighborhood

corner store coffee shop pastry shop character that seems that this suggests to me was at some point the historic kind of nature of this this is two blocks from westman square which has it and we we rezone our village centers or vcod for what we want to see you know first floor retail and things like that this is just two blocks away kind of an outlier i see it And those other two buildings, they were very old buildings. I don't know what the age is in that. So they've been residentials for quite some time, under 850 years, except for the, you know, that one right there, which, you know, I'm fine leaving as the corner store type of thing.

I wonder if the historic, as you said, Councilor Wright, those two on the bottom kind of up to the right are recently, fairly recently redeveloped, right?

Oh, no. So that one right there, It burned down, and they rebuilt it exactly what it was like before. I was wishing they would rebuild it a little nicer looking, but it had a fire.

But I'm wondering if, like, I, for whatever reason, and I didn't quite follow, our choices were kind of basically between the MR and SR options, but, like, I'm wondering if, for, like, that triple-decker in that two-to-four Auburn Galab photo on the right, Would an MRT zoning for that parcel produce a better preservation likelihood?

I mean, that's totally out. The MRT is... is specifically for going from the village centers and going into the residential neighborhoods. This is two blocks away from the village center. And there would be a single lot. So no, not MRT. Now, that's another discussion somewhere else about what we can do to try to preserve these other homes, which we will have at a later date. But making that lot MRT, that's not the purpose of MRT.

Can I ask a clarifying question? I think we're using MR and MRT interchangeably. No. I just want to make sure. MR 1, 2, or 3.

Yeah, MRT is obviously. I would have corrected this.

So just to move us along here because it's nine o'clock and I want to get us out of your decent hour. The cables reminds me that we do have a bedtime to all of us and the planning director has to drive an hour. So the conclusion here, as I hear it, is that this might make sense to return to residential use. Am I hearing that from the counselors as well?

On the south side of the street. The one has a business there, like a corner store, and I would just keep it.

It's a dry cleaner. It's going to be $1,100 a week.

So the next step would be a public hearing to rezone?

Well, the conclusion is that these would be beneficially rezoned to residential rather than commercial. Then ultimately, when we get through this, we're going to have a menu of specific sites. Just note it for now. Just note it. But I'm not going to sign a public hearing. We don't have a docket item for that yet. I mean, this is a... a longer-term process. These buildings are not going to be redeveloped tomorrow. But the point of this docket item initially was, we have a misalignment in certain places, and what does that misalignment look like, and can we fix it or should we fix it? So at least this is a, as we carry forward on this, as a candidate, seems appropriate for re-region in some context. The others so far have not. No, don't trust me. Don't trust me.

Do we jump to work to Oak Hill Park? So, Councilor Farrell can participate.

Oh, sure. We can. Again, the department has got a whole menu here, but we can.

What I'm going to suggest is that

Um, we had a clear conclusion. I thought in the first item to leave it alone.

Yeah, no, no. The first item. Moving on to residential. Yeah. Well, I'm going to find Boylston and deny it up 26, nine foot chest.

I want to use your wallet, but by my poor summary, but I thought we had come to a clear resolution on.

The first one we resound, the next two or three, now we're here. Now we're here.

OK. And so this one is kind of a, at least Councilor Dunlapet is not clear.

Still on the fence. Still on the fence.

Okay, so let's just flag that it's not this is all that's all I want to get through the high level.

Would you like to jump. Yes, I think just yeah. Are you going to stay the whole time. You keep moving.

If you're comfortable in counseling, then let's stay in order. I appreciate the consideration. Your colleague in the board looks happy.

Just quickly, I do want to address a couple of things based on all the comments, and I know I'm not going to catch everything. But one important consideration is multifamily always requires a special permit, whereas single and two-family has a library option. So that's just something to keep out in the back of your minds. It's a different level of purview depending on what they want to redevelop as. And then the other thing is, you know, we're, we obviously put a lot of information on these slides and we tried to cover it from different perspectives, knowing different counselors will value different things, you know, historic value versus existing heights. So if there's any follow up questions or anything, we're happy to walk through those in more detail. So now we're gonna move over to the corner of Washington Street and Watertown Street, where you have this one parcel that is currently a single family house. It's right here. You can see it's Watertown and Washington, so it's very much a commercial area. The house itself is subject to NHC oversight because of its age. And it is kind of a transition area. It does help with the buffering. You can see the single residence zone in the dark yellow. That's SR2, I believe, or sorry, SR3 to the north. So it does kind of help buffer before you get to that busier area. On the other hand, is a clearly residential use currently.

I think

This is your.

Yeah, I can save the money. So I think that will actually get rezoned as residential. It's been residential for 120 years. The corner lot, I mean, I believe it as such, but that kind of seems a little bit as an outlier because that whole street is all residential. I mean, you do have business on the south side of the street, but you could have just stopped at the gas station. so but but the one house has been there forever the women that live there they do nice job nice flowers the whole bit yeah do it based on who's there but i like this is residential yeah well it would it's a nice house and it's sort of a change to see it you know well the thing is the other two houses that the next house On the corner there at 77 Davis, you know, they bought the house being next door to another house. And now that turns, turns down and comes up to a four-story building. That really changed what, you know, they bought into. And, and so this is kind of, you know, leaving it as such. Now the corner one can get higher and everything too, because that's business use. It was a special firm, but they could, you know, take that down and build that up.

But the consensus is that this is appropriate to result.

No, 53. Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions?

These are, it gets a little bit to Councillor Rich's point, but sort of more granular and personal. These are kind of big decisions about, like in this case, an individual family's life. Do we go and talk to them? Like, do we, is there public engagement that occurs?

The public hearing, if we decide we want to do it, we're going to have a public hearing.

Okay, great.

And they'll be in.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, wonderful. Great. I'm happy to hear it.

You know, I mean, let me be explicit about it. The public hearing formal notice is done through the conventional clauses of a public hearing. Right. But, you know, if a specific parcel is involved, the My experience has been that people are affected by that or aware of it. And either the counselors make them aware or they're aware of it directly. And they want to be heard.

They come and talk about it. We do notice if a parcel is being rezoned.

I would think so. It is not state law. You don't have to issue notices to people if their property is being rezoned. Reason being that it is a community decision. The future of... whatever properties may be. So it's not a state law. You might have a local ordinance that requires it.

I think that in the whole VCOD, we didn't notify every property owner what we were doing. It would have been usually impractical to do that.

uh but in a situation where we're going to have some specific i'm sure we're going to be different you know people find their houses when i bought my house i didn't check my zone i had no idea what i could do afterwards you bought the house this is what you have this is what you think you can have and then you know oh it's zone bu and i can you know blow four times more than what's on the lot right now you know most people don't know that Understood.

Anyway. Thank you. The point of this story is that the possibility of doing something is not the insurance. Right. Okay. Are we clear? Then at least this is a candidate.

Yeah.

Right. Right.

Right. So now we're going to look at another section of Washington Street, where Cross Street and Parsons Street intersect. There are two parcels over here on Cross Street, as well as one that's on Washington Street and one in person. So this is, it's Washington Street. So it is a commercial area. It has, it's well served by transit. The structures are predominantly, the residential ones that are there are older. So they are subject to the historic mission oversight. Um, it does follow the strategy that was discussed in the momentum of one to two parcels back from Washington Street is owned commercially. redevelopment is possible due to the proximity to Washington Street. But you do have those limitations by age. So And just another set of considerations.

So this is Councilor Bright, this is your opinion.

Yeah, so actually, the owner of the building when Trader Joe's, actually, this is not Parsons. He purchased the ones on that, let's see. Who's going to give them to the parking lot? I'm just looking, the MR lots.

This looks like it has a lot of red lights. Red dogs. Red dogs.

I know. 57, 59 person. The thing we're wrestling with is we've got these. These are currently residential uses, right? Yeah.

And if they're rebuilt, they're going to be a different kind of residential use. If you want them to be business, they could be business. So the question is, what is the future in this particular location?

I tend to be residential in reality. 57, 59 are condos, so that kind of is difficult. You have to buy about three people in order to develop that. And 53 cross, or 51 cross, is that 53? It's 53 or 49. Oh, 53. There's a table in the memo.

Martha.

It says there's database, and there's no 53 on here.

It's the second big building of the boss. 1105 Washington, and then right behind it, a very skinny thing called 57. Oh, I'm sorry about that.

Yeah. At least the argument that the persons, the 57,

back into the neighborhood. The one 1077-79 Washington Street is at least on the corridor. And then, you know, if you're saying which, what would be the rational piece, it would be to maintain the residential or those residential, maybe leave that one. Is that?

Yeah. I mean, 53, you do keep Washington Street commercial.

I mean, 1077-79, what is that building? I can't see. Which one is that? Do we have a picture of that one?

I don't have it in the slides. I can pull it up.

It's just a house. 1077-1079. I mean, it's on Washington Street. Anything on Washington Street, I think, should stay business.

But there's a sense, again, of a conversation that at least the parts that are back from Washington Street are appropriate. There's 53 cross and 49 cross. Yeah. Those two and then 57, 59 Parsons. Even those within two.

HAB-Jacques Juilland.

Nor I was, I was just commenting that for Adam street unit within two parcels we maintain the commercial, but if you prefer to well so right framework here so right across the street from 5759 is and then our law and I think the laws. Right along Washington street might be a little bit deeper than the ones along Adam street. But right across the street here, this is an MR lot, which is closer to Washington Street. This is one here is commercial. I mean, BU. So for...

Now we're clarifying because we were our understanding was it was one to two back from the main commercial corridor, not the street that it's on. So it depends how big the last.

Context for this. 59 is an MR lot, which is even closer to Washington Street than that is.

So just to give guidance to the department, we're talking about potentially rezoning 49 cross and 53 cross and 57 and 59 Parsons, right? Correct?

I think it was just the 50, the cross and then

Yeah, 49 and 53. I mean, I think 49 definitely should get rezoned because it's across the street from an MR lot. 53 is across the street from BU lot.

But they're inviting each other, shouldn't they be?

This is the 53. Looks like it's currently a three-family. So it's, it's very deceptive in terms of it. And it's from the era of it is it's an 1890s house. So it's been, okay.

You know, that you, yeah. 1890s. Yeah.

A stark condition right now.

No, it doesn't look like it. So just to move things along 50, 49 and 53 rezone. Yeah.

Okay, 5759 Parsons rezone. Yeah. And leave 1077-79 Washington Street commercial.

Yeah. And what I was going to say, I disagree only in that, especially in that they abut the Trader Joe's lot. And behind it is the Trader Joe's parking lot. And my suspicion is, given the state of the Trader Joe's, that there will be an opportunity there that is large enough to consider buying out. And so I think this is a potentially commercial opportunity. And so to foreclose that by making it residential now.

So I'll tell you right now, the owner of the building of Trader Joe's has bought out more than that, 4143. And the last I heard, and he would have to go, I think, for a special permit, but he was taking, oh, he already subdivided the lot, and he's going to take He was going to tear down the house. He got a lot of pushback, Matt, too. So he's going to take the backyard and use it as part of the parking lot. I'm surprised they haven't gone through this. And then he was going to do the same with 49. And I don't know if he was in negotiations with 53, but to make it a bigger parking lot and make an exit right out there for Trader Joe's. So that's happening right now. But I mean, he's going to make, he was in the process of, and he's working with Bookbinder to make 4143 and use it, which is right now an MR lot, I think. Yep. And they're going through to make it part of the parking lot.

So, but again, the question is, what is our, I think we're pretty clear that 5759 Parsons isn't going to be on a candidate list. least a question about 49 40 and 53 now no 57 i i would say we just that that's that's part of 1105 so that's all state as bu because they're on washington street yeah 1077 79 leave that alone but i'm just talking about we give the kinds to the so um there's at least a question about what's All right. So at least we've got one candidate rezoning and one question.

And Parsons rezoned?

Yeah. June.

MR. It's across the street from MR already and it's the whole street.

Yeah. The cross street. All right, we clear. I just want to move forward if we can. We can come back to anything if we have a lot more time. Again, the hours ticking away at us. Okay.

So next one. Okay. We are looking at this block between Comab and Auburn Street. You'll notice what's really unusual about this is this parcel is doesn't have the greatest access to anything right now.

It is a fascinating spot.

So it is a commercial mixed-use area with some multifamily. You can see that this view right here is the only angle you can actually see that building. Otherwise, it's blocked from the other directions. HAB-Masyn Moyer- It would be it does mean 50 year threshold, so it would be subject to that oversight, but it is kind of in this transition zone, where it could it could fall either way.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Can I just say one thing about the 50 year oversight, all it is is is a speed bump, they can still tear it down. HAB-Masyn Moyer- yeah they can still tear it down yeah so.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- This is word for.

Yeah, it's interesting. I just met with the family that owns the house just next to them that has a whole 1890s house, a little barn. And so the way that you access this building is that narrow street that you can see cut through the block, which is a sort of technically public but doesn't feel like it little street. I don't know. I'm very torn about a lot of these. I'm inclined to be well enough alone in a lot of cases.

Well, the question we worry about is that if they're repurchased and sold and made into something because of their business selling much bigger, it would be much more out of context with what's there. That's the... Give it a special purchase grant. Yeah.

Give it an opportunity to make it stay residential.

John Gerstle, I given given the context of this block, you can see, I don't necessarily know that it should stay resident right yeah um yeah yeah it's a nice old house, but.

John Gerstle, I would, I would suggest that this one, maybe there's a candidate for resuming.

John Gerstle, 284. John Gerstle, Just the one yeah.

Yeah, we kind of disagree.

Turn this into a commercial right behind residential?

It's bizarre.

But the whole block on the other side of it was also all commercial. The anomalous character of this block is actually these couple of residential parcels along Melrose.

This could offer a lot of opportunity for a street-facing business to have storage or something, right?

Not at that particular interval, no.

that actually faces onto major streets. And then you could have, it could be, yeah, storage parking.

But for this purpose, it's a residential, it would be nice to keep it that way. Right? I think so. Well, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get candidate properties for rezoning. We may not do any of them at all, but the department's gone through a good deal of effort to give us some clarity about the context for these So I would like to at least get a preliminary call on this one.

Yeah, this one's a little odd because a buddy, it's buddy and MR, you know, it's right now. On one side. On one side.

And the other three sides are BU.

Yeah. BU and BC2. Yeah.

So it's right there.

And it's surrounded by the middle of the block that is BU is also in parking. It's a combo privately and publicly owned parking.

Yeah, but it's not always going to state parking. I mean, there's talk of housing there.

So where are we, folks? Raise a hand. Who wants to change 284?

We're only looking at 284. Who wants that to change to residential?

It's already residential, right?

But it's BU1. And then it's, you know, it's budding. It's right next to VC2. It's, you know, adjoining and it's MR2. I think so. I think so.

All right. There you go. All right. Okay. I don't have an argument.

It's a tough call, but I...

I give the presumption that the ward councilor knows what he's talking about.

We'll say, I think, because that one's dependent on likely combining with another parcel.

So the person who owns 284 owns the BU lot that's along Melrose Ave right up there. So they own both of those.

So it's not worth it. I don't want to go, I don't want to say the sound of traffic was not going to be productive. Okay. All right, go to the next one.

So now we're going to look at Newton Center, which includes Four Corners and Newton Highlands, so Ward 6 and 8. Starting with the Four Corners, so right up the street where Whole Foods is, we have some parcels down here on Carthay Circle and then up here towards Brentwood Ave. So, um, so this is a largely commercial area and it is intersected by the two aqueducts. So, you know, development somewhat limited, particularly of that one parcel down there. And it does have a nice buffering purpose between the residential and the more heavier uses as you go further down. And there also was a very clear delineation. So once you get to Brentwood Ave, you see it right here, it quickly transitions to residential.

Can you blow up the map that shows the difference on the one in the bottom left corner? Okay, so we're talking about the old B. up there too.

There, here, and here. So this is basically the back of the Whole Foods parking lot. And because you have those restrictions. Yeah, that's a special apartment. And then up here, you do have this commercial corner. And then the residential kind of wraps around it. But otherwise, it is a commercial corridor. Here, I will say these parcels were

all redeveloped within the last um that's carthay i would leave those yeah so um so on the south side of beacon nothing's going to change because those are all brand new or going to be brand new um the the the two brentwood lots the other which is um steve um steve siegel's engineering firm and then the the one that's at the corner my eyes are not great but is it 542 or something anyway the one that um there's there's not a whole lot to be gained by changing any of these isn't the point of rezoning it is so that we don't get gigantic

The point is that if you don't rezone it, someone could take a business zone parcel, make a very large Clinton Street scale building right next to a residential zone. That's why we're going through this, not because it can't be a commercial use in some context, but if it's not Cleve Jones, Clearly commercially beneficial like it's on a it's on a main corridor which we've talked about as a distinguishing feature like it's on Adam street and has a commercial value. Cleve Jones, As a commercial use if it's really going to be turned into this as a residential use now and could become a much bigger residential use. as a right, then it makes sense to rezone it. So we're really trying to make the call on where, in fact, there is an anomaly or at least a concern that our current zoning is going to potentially change that into a very different outcome.

So that was my understanding, in which case I do think these should be zoned as residential and not left as business.

Yeah. And if you rezone it as residential, then it's not going to be used for business. You may not have that opportunity much anyway. So the question is, just to clear these out and move along, the Carthage Circle properties What about those? Yeah. I'm sorry.

Leave them. When you say leave them, are you saying leave them as business use?

Leave them as business. They could be converted to residential. But the point is they've been redeveloped recently. The risk is low. The question is, is it worth the trouble?

OK.

Residential.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I mean, the rest of the circles residential yeah why now.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- yeah see, I would say, why don't we make it residential.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- It is resident just want to get a clarity here and i'm on committee yeah.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- No, the only thought that I have is. HAB-Masyn Moyer- When we were discussing, you know, I looked to the zoning that was presented when we were doing the vcd these parcels were not part of the vcd. They were maintained. You can see the map right here. The two on Carthay Circle were not parked, but right on Beacon Street, that's all Priority Street.

Yeah, so 899 Walnut State Business and then 57 and 911 Carthay Circle.

yeah and right next door it's mr1 so and i'll say this about hang on wait a minute i gotta recognize people otherwise we're gonna be a little disorderly so come on up front where you can see that i can i can raise your hand and i can

So my concern about the destruction of value doesn't apply on Carthay Circle because they picked a dog in this fight. They picked the residential relatively recently, as has 1062 Beacon. So those three locks, I would not object to changing those to residential because they don't... They don't, they're not looking to redevelop that anytime. They're not looking at that as value or wealth.

What was the third one?

10. The 1062. Okay, 1062. And the two Carthage Circle.

So the area south of Beacon would be candidates for resumption. Okay. Councilor Gordon.

Councilor Gordon.

Can we put Councilor Gordon's picture up so you can see it's not hidden behind the map? There she is.

I don't disagree with what Councilor Roach just said. If we're just talking about Brentwood and Carthay, is that correct?

No, right now it's just talking about Beacon and Carthay.

Okay.

Now, let's go north and pick up the two, the three parcels up by the rice. Okay. Again, award six. Councilor Gordon, do you have a preference?

So this is 850-846 Walnut Street and then Brentwood 5860 and 51.

Oh, well, okay. So if you're looking at the 858 Walnut and the 860-862, those are businesses right now. Yeah. And if they wanted to convert those to residential, that would be special permit, wouldn't it?

So can I clarify, the photos are to give you context of the street. 8.58 Walnut and 8.60 Walnut are not part of the chain. Go one slide. Yeah.

I think that might be helpful. So it's not the corner where the business is. Okay. The three that wrap around that.

We're talking about the wraparound parcels.

At the end. At Brentwood and Walnut.

Oh, yeah. So at least, you know, the There's an argument that 850 Walnut Street is on the major, you know, if it got redeveloped as a residential, a big residential, it's on a major street. But the other two parcels are on minor streets and are part of a more residential area. And it would seem to me to make sense to take those and make those consistent. But that's just my over, my, you know, this is not my ward. So I'm going to,

Well, I agree with what I agree with if there's residential right there and further down. I mean, there's a real estate agent right next door to that, but they're in a house. So I do think they should be rezoned to residential, not far away from the street, from the main shopping area.

Move is blown, but any other comment on this? So you're saying...

Councilor Baker, the one on Walnut, 860, I think that is. 846. That one, right, that she's pointing out, would be rezoned.

No, it would stay the same. It would stay the same. 850 Walnut would stay the same. Right now, it's residential. I mean, excuse me, it's commercial, but it could be a business, rather. It's business, but could be turned into a large commercial. But because it's on Walnut Street, the exposure there of that is not a big problem. Oh, I see. But the two above it. Yes. Okay. All right. Are we agreed on that? Okay. So let's go to the next one.

5860 and 50. Okay. We're nearing the end. All right. So now we're going to look at Langley Road. You see it's kind of a mix of parcels scattered throughout this area. But when you actually look at the context, so it is a commercial area, but it's also, yeah, it's significantly sized multifamily. It's not, you know, two or three family. These are large apartment buildings. So something to consider. The other thing is these two parcels up here are quite small. So you probably would see if those were to turn over, it would be some sort of larger combining of lots, most likely not necessarily in itself.

You know, I know this area a little bit because it's closer to the East Newton section. But they said nobody ever.

I've never heard of East Newton. You haven't heard of East Newton? It's like Friday 4 from Chesapeake.

No, the former city clerk used to say that I was a counselor from East Newton. Right.

We'll make sure to read any of the slides from this time.

Anyway, but this doesn't, the only parcel that is sort of a bit of an inholding is 13 Jackson. I just wondered about that. But the others are really, don't strike me as the kind of preservation opportunity. No, no.

I mean, this is, all of this is time to build. the view yes um 13 am i but are they all oh they're all being used as right there's a lot of resonance they should stay to be before 16 418 is in the middle of redevelopment yeah something going on there oh yeah oh those there's six condos in each of the land for 1.2 million but let's let's go see is there any anybody who wants to do anything different here because if not i'm going to move us i i i agree with not doing anything and 13 is is an outlier anyways amongst all the bu i would just say that so we're all going to pull over on this house ready to like dig in my heels

were prepared to go to battle and nobody wants to play such a disappointment all right okay we want to move on all right nothing that happens in we're not doing anything in thompsonville all right okay now we're looking at oak hill park so this is one where um you have this

commercial zone in the middle of a residential area. But the interesting thing to point out here is when you actually look at the uses, if you remember, we're only pulling lots that were with one to three units. The only commercial use in this entire block is a little functional in the corner. So just something we want to point out. The other thing I want to highlight is one of these parcels, 10 to 12 Hanson Road, recently went through a special permit being developed under the BU zoning. And then interestingly, when you look at Hanson Road and the surrounding neighborhood where it is in the SR3 zoning, we're also seeing redevelopment where it is quite significant massing to what's been done across the street. So, interesting.

But I don't think it's quite the same massing. Because of the BU zone, you can have twice as much massing. And it was a lot more. And it was kind of, it had a bit of problem going through the session.

That's the Hanson Road is BU. Yeah.

So, Councilor Farrell, do you want to come to the table on this one? Because this is. Oh, no, that's wrong. Do you have any views on that?

I don't know what the difference is with 55, which is at the end. Well, you're on those three. I thought all four of those. Well, this is the big one. The big one.

Yeah. So that's why they can build so much.

What we're, again, trying to protect against is someone who takes and builds a very large residential structure and so if you if you're concerned about that and it's not really this is this is not a commercial corridor this would be candidates for for rezoning and this entire building was at one point the only commercial property awarded

It was the original marketplace. And then they cut it in half and the right portion towards the top of the screen is now residential. But there are some commercial properties in there. There's a pizza place and laundromat.

And 655? Yeah.

Okay. 655. You can see it in this lower part of the picture. Yeah. That's commercial. And then the corner property here is the Sherman Center, which is a nonprofit organization run by the Oak Hill Park residents. Yeah.

We're not worried about it. It's just the three. The three up there.

I think the G's. The N's should be right there. Okay. So who's this?

No.

This is part of this.

It's one of your lines. It's one of your lines. Hang on a second. Let me make sure I get everybody. I'm done. I got three people wanting to talk, but I'm going to recognize Councillor Gordon first because her hand is up and online and I always miss people online.

Thank you chair Baker, I just wanted to say that I met with the residents in this neighborhood and they were extremely upset about what was built there and how big it was in relation to the houses in the neighborhood so. I just want to say, I think it would behoove us to change those to residential and I think it would the neighborhood would thank us, they were beside themselves.

hear from others, though, if this counselor gets, and then I go to the counselor room.

In 19, in 2022, 55 Palilla was actually a special product. And I went in and sort of, here's the original map for Oak Hill Park. And they were all designated as residential lots. And then what ended up happening was like in the 19, so then it changed and it went into our are two district residential lots. So those on Hanson, those four lots were all residential. And then in the 1950s, they were designated as BU1 lots. So I always felt that these were erroneously labeled BU1 lots. And it's substantiated by, you know, what happened historically. You know, if you look at the progression, you look at the original Oak Hill map, and then you look at the subsequent maps, here's the subsequent, where it's the neighborhood general designation, and then the R2 designation. In the 1950s, you understand at some point, this got converted to BU1 lots, and they actually are, I consider, a misnomer. They should never have received the BU designation.

That's probably true.

So, Councillor Roach.

I'm in this neighborhood a lot, and I think that given the commercial and given the scale of the building in the north corner, that those three properties would be smaller units, not the condos. And that unfortunately in our zoning, the best way to do multifamily apartment-like buildings is special permanent and BU. So I would leave them.

I would switch it. I mean, right now they could have done that with a special apartment because they were BU. And they could have made apartment buildings there, and they didn't. So they're just going to make really, really big two condos. And so I would change this to residential.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- One thing i'll also point out this is where half stories being recognized and residential but not business zones has come into play. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So the hands and road one that additional what looks like a third story, this is considered a two story building under the BU zoning because we don't qualify half stories so it's just another. HAB-Masyn Moyer- hopeful. perspective to look at it.

So let's just get clarity.

Again, I'm kind of inclined for basically entirely different reasons than any of them that have been said. I'm just sort of like on the basis of mid-century planning that, you know, whole blocks are typically zoned as one zone in these kinds of mid-century development projects. And so I'm inclined to preserve the change it, recognizing that that has repercussions down the road. But yeah, I'm inclined towards keeping it as it is.

This entire neighborhood was created in 1949. Yeah. There was nothing. There was a sand pit. Yeah. And they were all small, thousand square foot homes on slabs. And there may be 10 or a lot of them left. I mean, when they planned They built a high school, they had a playground. It was a real interesting community. The houses faced each other on paths, not roads that you couldn't drive on. And I'm sure that got changed when they changed the big residence. They knocked down half of that commercial center and built that big apartment building. And that's probably when this all became BU.

Let me get a change that's written in. Sent to the committee on this, because it would be clear. How many folks are in favor of making this the three?

Four.

The four. I don't know why the fourth one's out.

The 55 Koloa, the one that's on the corner, is special permitted.

Is what?

The one on the corner. So there's three. There's only three. And the one on the corner. Yeah, I know, but the ones that are Under right now, the three that are left on Hanson are the ones with.

The fourth one.

One on the corner has already been redeveloped.

So I mean, you want to be consistent with its designation.

Yeah, so I can provide some clarity on this. The way the parcel list was extrapolated from the assessor's records was residential one to three units. There's certain exceptions built into that, and this is a housing authority property on the corner. That's why it didn't get put into that extrapolation.

So I think that that parcel, but let me get clear. Then we have three parcels?

Three parcels. Which ones are we talking about?

We're talking about Hanson, right? 18 Hanson, 10 to 12 Hanson, and 633 Sawmill Brook.

so 55 that's not housing authority no but that's the one that's it's spacing and that's the one that's the special i know but it didn't give me zone and 47 of them hang on hang on let's excuse me a second but we just got to get clarity on what we at least most of the committee agreed on so we're talking about the three 18 10 to 12 and 6 33. yes our committee sentiment anybody dissent

and what is that what did you say about the housing authority that's the one next to it they own at least one of those parcels right there a little little one a little one that's i just looked it up that's the housing authority right the one on the corner no 47 49 the little one in between the big apartment building that's the housing authority there was another i can look

as to why this one was excluded, but it would have had to do with how it's coded in the assessor's database.

Okay, so if possible, I think we'd want to make that one residential as well. Right.

Yeah. And they just redeveloped it, but yes, I think you should go to residential.

So now we're back to 55 Colola, because that was the one we just said. Oh, I thought you were talking about the other one, the...

Thank you.

I'm just a little bit worried that at this stage, after having done eight or nine rounds of these. Now we're saying, oh, even though it was redeveloped recently, we're actually going to consider changing it like that had been excluded. Parcels from reconsideration up till this point. I think it's always been considered. But we keep just saying, oh, it's just been redeveloped, so we'll just not do it.

No, we still did it. We just redeveloped over in Four Corners on the south of Beacon Street. And a bunch of them were just redeveloped.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- But we left them as they were now. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Residential so that we can we change those residential.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I mean, we nominated them. We haven't done.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I thought we were leaving them and I would have disagreed that into HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay. All right. Well, that's fine. I guess as long as we consistent.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Well, HAB-Masyn Moyer- We're making decisions. So let's go. We can always revisit all of these, but we're trying to get down to a candidate class of properties to give help to the departments to do something.

So just as something is thinking of future uses. So even if something is, is, has recently been redeveloped, just as we've heard in previous discussions, like, you know, something that was changed in zoning back in 1950s, you know, we might take issue with today. People 50 years from now might take issue with decisions that are made today. So you're not planning on this round of what's going to be redeveloped in the next 10 years. It's going to be, this is a living document that, yes, we look at from time to time, but what partials are rezoned as can stay that way for 50, 100 years. So you do have to have a very long view of it. Just, I'll get it.

Okay. So are we now clear on where we are for eight more days?

this particular question did we do the one on colella so i speak to that i i'm gonna go to colella okay can we just talk about it so i'll have to double check i think the reason that it wasn't captured in the map is because the map captured residential uses of one to three units and that one is likely four units already and so that's why it wasn't um

The corner lot. So we have the housing authority property and then that corner one, if it wasn't one to three units, it did not get included.

It's only two units. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. If it's

Regardless of the number of units, should we include it?

Yes. I might have some insight. So it was approved as a special permit for two units. I'm seeing on the assessor's database, there's a master deed. So it does look like there's kind of three entries on the assessor. So perhaps that precluded it from being included.

I'm hearing that regardless of the number of units, there's an assignment to include the parcel. Is that correct?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. All right. So are you clear on this one? All right. Can we go to the next one? We're making, we're almost out of anybody.

We're working at the upper lines.

So we have the special purpose criteria.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry about that. We'll fix that. A lot of content here. So now we're looking at Key Body Street, where it meets Washington Street. Kind of a similar situation that we saw earlier, where you have a very busy corridor, and then it starts to transition into residential. There is some pretty significant large multifamily with 10 plus stories across the street. That being said, we're looking a couple of parcels in. There is some pretty significant massing across from these.

So this is Ward 6. This is actually Ward 1.

Yeah, there was such a row in the labels. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, what time Washington should say BU on Washington?

Yeah, but I think also on David.

What about Peabody?