Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Ms. Wolf from the Planning Department, and we're also joined by Councillor Brooks, not a member of the committee. And I think that's it for the staff of... official capacity of some sort and so I want to talk a little bit about how we're going to proceed tonight. We have an agenda that has got a lot of opportunity for sharing information but we're going to begin with an appointment for the Conservation Commission and that's as a member of the Conservation Commission for a term to expire April 7th, 2027. And Mr. Minnick, you are here virtually. We're delighted to see you in any capacity, so. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Can you make him a little louder for us? And make him . So it is customary, we have your extensive resume, but it's customary to ask about a little of your background and your interest in serving in this capacity. Obviously, the Conservation Commission is an important body in the city. And so if you would like to start off, and then members of the committee will ask you questions if they have any, and then we'll move on to vote on your appointment.

Sure. Up until about a year ago, I worked for the U.S. National Park Service. I spent 35 years with the service working in environmental compliance for the Northeast region. So I covered projects in park units from Maine to Virginia. I coordinated environmental impact statements, other internal permanent compliance, external permanent with the Nature and Species Act, Army Corps of Engineers, EPA water quality, um before that i spent two years as the conservation administrator for the town of lexington and uh for that i went to law and graduate school at vermont law school and you know i've been involved with a number of different conservation organizations over the years, and this seems like an opportunity now that I'm retired to give a little back to the city I've been living in and raised my family in since we moved here in 1997.

Wonderful, thank you. And I know a little bit about Vermont Law School too, and there are a bunch of wonderful people up there. Councilor Hemmings, Councilor Wright, and then Councilor Goetz.

I just want to say thank you for stepping up and with your great background, I think you're going to be a big plus to the committee. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Councilor Goetz.

Well, he's in Ward 5. So when the moment comes, I will move to nominate you. But the 35-plus years with the National Park Service is incredible. And your work as an attorney working with the Massachusetts Wetland Protection Act compliance, as well as you being the Park Service's negotiator in dam removal settlements, it's just outrageous. So I appreciate your background and we're super lucky to have you, you know, and so thank you so much for offering your time and your willingness to serve.

You're very welcome.

Happy to do it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Pleasure to meet you and I'll echo the sentiment of thanking you for your willingness to serve. I am curious, do you spend much time following All the activities going on here in Newton not only with We have a dam project I think going on and some other things and I'm just curious what What interested you in in kind of I don't know signing up Rather you know the dam project I have followed that I do follow a number of dam removal projects I was involved in

in a small one out in Concord. I've been involved with them all over the Northeast in my capacity with the Park Service. And, you know, I get the mayor's weekly notes, which I read every week. And, you know, I spend a fair amount of time walking the trails and paddling the Charles River. And, you know, again, being retired a little over a year, I wanted to spend a little a little more time getting back into this kind of process, a governmental process. And this seemed like an ideal way to get involved and offer my assistance and get a better sense of what's going on with the city and help the city as well as the people that come before the commission.

Great. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councillor Albright.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm going to add my thank you to you for being willing to serve with your extensive background. It's amazing. I was wondering if you've been following the Conservation Commission and if you have any areas of particular interest or concern as you get started here.

Well, I'm certainly interested in the process associated with the dam removal and the work that's over near, I guess that's pretty close to City Hall, and any projects in and around the Charles River. And just to get a better sense of the wetlands in town, as well as the different projects that are ongoing. Our house is up on a hill and that was deliberate. I'd like to stay in a neutral place where I can, but I just wanna get a little bit more involved with the the inner workings of the city. I don't have any political aspirations, but I do want to keep focused on conservation and preservation and historical resources, of course. We have a lot of those.

Thank you very much.

Sure.

Any other questions? I don't see any. Councilor Goetz.

I'd like to move approval.

SO COUNCIL GUEST HAS MOVED TO APPROVAL. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR WILL SAY AYE. AYE. OPPOSED? EXTENSION? THE AYES HAVE IT. UNANIMOUS. WHAT WILL HAPPEN, MR. MENDICK, IS THAT OUR RECOMMENDATION WILL GO TO THE FULL COUNCIL AT ITS NEXT MEETING. AND IT'S CUSTOMARY THAT THOSE ARE APPROVED USUALLY AS PART OF A LARGER VOTE ON FIRST CALL. SO YOU WOULDN'T BE CALLED OUT FOR A SPECIFIC MENTION. BUT WE EXPECT YOU TO BE VOTED. AND THEN YOU CAN BEGIN SERVICE I also note that you have done work on golf courses. And if you're comfortable sharing your email with the clerk, I'll send you a short article about why more attorneys should play golf.

That would be great. I've been involved with a couple of golf course restorations, national historic landmark designations, national historic districts associated with golf and country clubs.

I did what? Three lawyers who don't play golf? Is that what happened?

Well, let's put it this way. A lot of people pick up a club and walk around. What they do with it is another story.

All right. Well, I've only been playing 50 years, so I'm not very good.

Join that club. All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Take care, everybody.

Have a good night. The next item before we get to discussion is 29026. And before any discussion, I just want to mention for the committee and the public who are attending a little background. You recall in the spring, we took up some issues related to the demolition of homes in Newton. And then during the summer, we worked on other matters. And part of the effort I wanted to our discussion on potential specific responses. And so, for example, when questions come up, I would ask members of committee to have them, certainly forward them to me and to the clerk. And if necessary, we will forward them to the people who have made presentations, but just be careful not to forward them around because then we get into an open meeting problem. And I'd rather avoid that if we can. But my intention as part of this committee process is to work through some potential issues that we can think about in responding to those as we go forward and starting really with the demolition delay work, which we'll pick up next week or next meeting and begin that conversation and then maybe move to some zoning conversations later. But in the meantime, the part of I thought it was important to have some background that we could discuss in the committee of what information we've been able to find over the summer about how homes have been demolished in the city and what has happened with the replacements. So that's, let me read this item into the record. It's item 29026, discussion of data about demolition of homes in Newton and their replacements. Councilor Baker, Wright, Oliver, Malachy, Irish, Farrell, Domobed, Gordon, Black, and Gatz requesting discussion and analysis of the data about the demolition of homes in Newton and their replacements. So this is really a counselor's rights, hard work along with the work. We had an intern in the summer, Sam Gelber, who was a student and spent a fair amount of time and we very much are grateful to him. I sent him an email that we're doing this tonight, but he's gone off to college. So he may not be able to even watch us virtually. But I'm going to turn over the conversation to Councilor Wright to make her presentation, and then we'll open it up for conversation. Councilor Wright.

Yeah, please.

We've been joined by Ms. Colello virtually. Thank you. Other people? Sorry, the planning director has come in. Excuse me. Yeah.

So this, and I'll come up to it, it's slightly different from what's in the packet and it's just adding some more points on the map and breaking up one of the tables a little bit more and some coloring too. So this summer, we, both Sam and I, and Sam started it off and then he had other things to do and so I kind of picked it up after that. But we wanted to study the teardowns from 2020, let me see, 2022 or 2021 through 20, 2021 to 2026. And what I did was we first started with the assessor's database. And that is 33,021 rows and 218 columns. It's a massive spreadsheet. And trying to get what were teardowns and that and pulling those out. And then kind of backtracked and then got from ISD all the demolitions that they have given, granted in that timeframe. And then, so then we layered the assessor's database on that. And then using outside sources like Zillow and realtor websites and things like that. And I'll go in a little bit more detail where we needed other places. So the big thing, we go to the next one. Next slide. So this is pretty much, overall is it was 402 homes and it keeps increasing because every week we get more demolitions so it was over 400 and the average price was 1.25 million and that have been demolished and they have been replaced by so far 239 new homes selling on the average of 4 million and And I included in that 14 rentals. So those are completed homes. And then there was 149 homes there and still a process. So they may have demoed the house and nothing started or restarted the build or they haven't yet demoed the house, but they do have the permit. And we started with around 430 properties. But getting all the demo requests from ISD, that included things like Northland and Carter-Pheasanton and things like that. We were only looking at residential. So I pulled those out. And then there was what I call 15... listings that didn't have sufficient data and then that never was higher, but the more digging I went I could find more and kind of fill it out, but because it wasn't all there I left those out. Next. So the demolished homes, 58% of them has less than 2,000 GLA, which is gross living area. And according to the assessor's database, that is defined typically the first and second floor minus any garage that might be on the first floor. That's the gross living area. FAR is slightly different. And the assessor's database doesn't track that. This is the floor area ratio. And that usually includes the garage and if it's on the first floor and may or may not include some of the attic and may or may not include the basement, but generally it's the first and second floor. So GLA in general, the difference between GLA and FAR, just a general high levels, it's not means every single time it's the same thing, is GLA doesn't have the garage and FAR would have the garage, but there's other nuances to it. And you have to look at by a case by case basis. The medium demolished home was $1,860. which is a common size for a three-bedroom single-family home. Most of these were built before 1960. A lot of them were modest capes and colonials and ranches. The average new build was 4,785 square feet GLA, which is almost two and a half times bigger than the original one. The listed size of those homes so when you look at a realtor the listing includes generally all the living space so if there's any in the attic or in the basement that's conditioned it's usually a lot a lot bigger than that and 33 of the homes exceeded 5 000 square feet these are definitely not modest homes you know these are these are much much bigger and this is a kind of a shift of the housing types in newton And I'm sorry to take a step back, but how we started this years ago is we, as counselors, have concerns from residents on the demolition of homes and loss of tree cover that are being replaced by much more larger and expensive homes. And a lot of these homes are perfectly fine. They might be a little bit dated, might have an older kitchen, but These could be starter homes. Yes, they're pretty high price, but when you're buying a house for $1.2 million and replacing it with something that's $3.5 million, big difference of who can afford that. And in the past, the City Council has addressed some of these things, like we've done retaining walls, limiting retaining walls without a special permit. if they're over four feet or a certain distance. We measure height from the original grade, not what developers or builders have built up. And we limited the facade ratio, which all of this helps what's being built, but it doesn't necessarily help from reducing the demolitions. So let's go a little bit deeper dive into things. So let's go to the next one, next page. Like I said here, these are my data sources. We started with Assessor's Database, which is huge. And then we got the list of demos. We kind of pulled out the demos from Assessor's Database. And then the Assessor's Database doesn't have everything. Like if the house has already been torn down and rebuilt, the GLA of the old house is not there. So I would need to either take a look at the house and see if the house next door is similar and might use that GLA, or I find the listing, but usually the listings includes the basement and attic, but not necessarily. So some of this data, especially the GLA, the earlier one for the original house, a few of them are more estimates, but this, There's so much data here, it's close enough. And we're not looking at the minute details, but the overall broad spectrum of what's happening here. Let's see. OK, next one. So the one that I'm working with most of the time is 430 rows and 124 columns. This is just a snapshot of just some of it. So you can get an idea, some of the data that I have in here. It has, you know, the latest sale date, what it's sold for. And if it's just listed, that's I got from the internet from a realtor website or Zelle. I have the ISD demo permit date. I have the original purchase date and then lot square footage and how many units are going in there and some of my notes. And then on the right is the list square feet. So what the realtor listed is the square feet GLA that's actually in the assessor's database. And then original GLA and again and you can see the little note some of it I had to get from a neighboring house or find it on the internet and might have been a little bit larger than it is by a realtor and and so this and this is the core of what I was um using for this But there's a lot more in here. Like I said, there's 218 columns. So I'm using some of that data to for some of the analysis. Okay, let's go to the next one.

We promise we don't have to read all 218 columns. So this is

So 402 is the demo number. So you're going to keep seeing it adding up to 402. So here you can see it's by the zoning type. And then I kind of split it what's sold or listed. So it's already built. Or some of them are going into rentals. And then the other one is kind of in the pipeline. So they haven't finished the work. And those are usually sold later. Um, so there, you know, it does take some time to, to do this. So the earlier ones are from the earlier sales and then the ones in the pipeline from later sales. Okay. Next. Okay. So this is all the demos, um, put on the map by address geocode and, and also the type of, um, zoning. As you can see from my original map, I have a love-hate relationship with Claude, and Claude on the web even though I have an account, and Claude and the app are two different things. And John has told me about it, and boy, it's a big difference. So the first time I did this is I used Claude on the web, and Claude had problems with his accessibility base because the address money had street street twice and didn't know what to do and things like that. So there was missing about $50,000. 50 of the demos, but it gave a good idea. So the second time coming through here, and I updated just yesterday. So this is the updated map from what was on Friday. It's about 50 more new ones. A few of them were added since August. The original map was from August because we've had some more demos, but I'm not catching all of them, but catching a few of them. But you can kind of see a little bit of the trend or where we have demos all across the city, but they're grouped in different areas and different types. Like, you know, the SR3 are up in West Newton on the flats or down in Oak Hill Park where there's a lot of them. You can see the MRs are in your Nantum type of area. So, and each one of those dots is, yeah, is an address.

Just point out that some of the areas that are historic districts don't have demos in them because they don't generally occur in an historic district.

Yeah, yeah. Even though the next one lists Chestnut Hill with an MR with a demo, I have no idea where that is. Okay, so the next one. So originally, so this is the problem with Assessor's Database. It doesn't call out separately Oak Hill, Oak Hill Park, Monantum, and Newton Corner. And the first three is all part of Newton Center. So that's why last Friday's numbers, Newton Center looked huge. But if you look at the map, you can really see the map is what's being torn down. And this is a rough estimate. So I worked with the assessing department, how to kind of come up and figure out and pull out Oak Hill and Oak Hill Park. And for those two, I use the wards And I think Oak Hill Park, we use Ward 8, Precinct 4, and Oak Hill is 81, 82, and 83. Now, there might be a few, you know, Upper Falls, Newton Highlands in that number, but it's roughly, this is just to give you a rough idea. of what's being torn down and where. I pulled out Thompsonville. I just blew up my map and counted it and then just took it from Newton Center. But separately though is Newton Corner. That is probably part of Nonantum and Newtonville. And I didn't know which way to do it. So I'm just, it's kind of as a note. And they had like 10 teardowns. And again, it depends. how or where you defined it. And this is not an exact science here. This is just to give you a rough overall idea of where things are happening and which ones are being turned down and where. So like if you take a look at MR1, So you have a lot in Nonantum, and Newtonville, and Newton Center, and Newton Upper Falls. And SR1, you know, West Newton, which is probably West Newton Hill, and Oak Hill, close to, you know, over there by the hill itself. So it gives you a rough idea where these are. Okay, next. So... Also, you know, there's averages and medium and to see how these numbers came out is I wanted to know how many of each of those listings there are and also gave a range. If there is one outlier that really skewed things and there's only a handful of data points, that can make a huge difference. For the most part, this is... is pretty on. So you can see the first purple column, that's your GLA gross living area, which again is basically usually the first and second floor minus any garage. And then the new one, the next column is what's rebuilt and that's the GLA. And I gave the range of that. And you can see the, and then in the third column, purple column is the average for the listing size. So if you just take an SR1, the GLA, so what we see in the assessor's database is 5,803 on average for the SR1s. But the average from all the living space, what the realtor does, and that's not exact science either, is over 9,000 square feet. If you look at SR3, it's 3,900 square feet. the new GLA, but the actual listing is 5759, which is a lot bigger. And the size from the before to the list size, you can see over three times as much. And the BU are kind of outliers because they don't have the same type of zoning as we do. So they're much, much bigger. size-wise and how many units and things like that.

Clinton Street.

Yeah, Clinton Street is on there, but there's even some other ones too, yeah. Okay, next. And this is now sale price. And again, kind of doing the same thing. You know, the average sale price, the range, and then the average recent sale price. And, you know, SR1, the average was, you know, 2 million and the average new is, you know, 6.2 million. SR3, the average is 975,000 and the new ones are 3 million. The MR1s and 2s, I added both of those. So it depends how many units it had, but for the average recent sale price, it's the total price of the whole building. So if they had, so for MR1, for instance, they sold it for 1.2. Typically, you know, the condos may go for, if you have two units, might be 2 million or 1.8. And let's say it's 2 million. So two of them for that building would be 4 million total. So the multipliers of, you know, what was original price versus the new sales, you can see it on the right there. Okay, next. And these are just some examples. And our intern went in much, much more detail, but we're just putting some basics to take a look at. And so you can go to the next one.

Well, your point about the facade ratio, just explain that.

So the facade ratio came into effect, I think, is it March of this year? And so the facade ratio is 60%. So the be more than 60% of the front of the lot. Except if you go 20 feet behind, then you can expand it a little bit more. So some of these houses, they were built before March. And so they're not following the facade ratio. But they could still put the same volume on the lot. So I would have expected that they would put more in the back or whatever. A lot of these houses are up to the maximum FAR. They're building to the maximum FAA, usually within a quarter or two. Okay, so this is just one single family house. You can see it was 1.6 million, and it went from 2374 to 5706, which is over twice as big, and sold for 5.3 million. Okay, next. Here's another one. It's SR2, sold for 1.8 million, and then a little over double, two and a half times the size and sold for 7.2 million. This is SR3, smaller one, 1.2 million and then sold for 3.7, single family. This one here is another single family, this Lower Falls. sold for 910 and over two, two and a half times and sold for about 3 million. And another one down in Oak Hill Park, sold for 1.1 million originally and then replaced with a house that was three, three and a half times bigger and sold for 3.3 million. And this is on Langley. And so this was a two-family, 1892 family, so for 1.5 million. Very small, 1252 for a two-family. And on the right, it was a special permit, and they have three condos. So that's about five times bigger than the original house. And three condos have been listed for over $7 million total for the three condos. And then rentals. So this is what I kind of fell upon as you're doing all this internet search and trying to find list price and sale price because it says there's databases like a few weeks behind the sales and that. So coming up is I'm putting things in. I'm getting some of the rentals. And the thing is I have rentals. So when I have an opening, it's up there. But when it gets filled, it's gone. So even though these rentals I have out there right now, if you went to look at them, you know, they're probably already filled.

And so they're not up there. All right. You have a question or hand raised?

I'm happy to wait till the end.

Hey, if you don't mind, I'd like to let her get through.

Yeah, no problem.

Thank you.

And so that other 15 line items that I didn't group anywhere, They might be rentals. That's why I don't find a final sale price or anything like that. But if it's filled already, I don't know. I don't see a rental price on it. So, yeah. So before, we had a house here. It was a two-family, and it sold for $1 million. And this is Upper Falls. And they put in two condos. So each condo sold. Total 3.5. So about 1.7 million for each condo. And now one of the condos is rented for over $14,000 a month. Next. This one. Okay. This is one of the few houses I think probably should have been torn down and probably was condemned. And it was the 1890 house. And you can see the price. So for 450,000, they put four condos on there. Total. So each of the condos were roughly $2 million each. And then one of the condos is being rented or it's listed for 11,000 a month. um this is single family house again um this is award eight and it sold originally for 1.5 million we did put a new house on there 3.65 million is sold as a new house and now it's rented at 16 000 a month that's a lot Yes, it is. Oh, there's even worse. I didn't put the worst ones up there. 24,000. I don't even have those up there. This here, this didn't even get sold. So the developer bought the house in Nantum for $1.2 million, put on two townhouses that he's renting, and he rents each of them for almost $11,000 each of them. And there's a few people who just do this too. I'm seeing more and more of that, that they're tearing it down, putting up condos and just renting them. So they don't even sell them, they just rent. Yeah, okay, what's next?

Okay, thank you. And I want to again thank Sam Gelber and Absentia for his time and effort. We've been joined as a member of the committee by Councilor Kalis. Thank you very much, Councilor Wright. I will now open it up for questions. I saw Councillor Albright had a question. Councillor Albright.

Thank you, Mr chair so first question is, and thanks for you know fixing some of that data that it's a little clear and tonight the but did you use zip code originally to do the village listing.

Now, so there is a. sheet on it there's a listing in the database in the assessors database and let's see what is it called it is called. um, HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes, because yeah something like that there's a certain code in there and. HAB-Masyn Moyer- But it includes which one I was found surprising new Center included everything down to the Boston line, and so it didn't break out, you know okay okay park thompsonville, and so I was talking to Mr. HAB-Masyn Moyer- shawn this Shauna see today about how we can pull it out so again it's it's not. JoAnne Hanrahan- granular but you get a rough idea and using the precinct I did try to look at zip code but Newton Center again is almost that whole areas as a zip code so that didn't work either and then trying to figure out. Thompsonville there weren't a lot, and you know who who defines what Thompsonville is versus the other one, so I just kind of you know went in there and took a look yeah I did. And the same with Newton corner, but Newton corner. At least I knew Thompsonville came out of Newton centers number but Newton corners numbers could came out of Newtonville. or no nantum. So I didn't know where to pull it from. So I just kind of left that at the bottom. It was not a big number. So they had like 10 teardowns there.

So the other, the other, there's a part of Newtonville that is, oh, 2459, that probably there's a piece of Newtonville that's got numbers in the Newton Center group. That's my guess.

Yeah. And again, I didn't go through what the assessors today to really break down how they figure all these little things out. But I'm very shocked that some of the villages aren't pulled out at all. And actually, Nonantum is not really pulled out either. But if you look at it, all the things that just said Newton was Nonantum. So we just put that into the Nonantum bucket. But the map is the thing. If you look at the map, that's right. And he took all those, you know, 200 or 400 lines of addresses and put a dot in the type of zoning exactly where it's supposed to be in the city. So the map is correct.

I think if you give the map or the actual addresses to Doug Greenfield with the GIS, he can give it back to us by Warden Precinct, which might be useful.

I could... Yeah, it's in the data there. I could do ward increasing, but some of them overlap. So it isn't an exact science. It's just to give you a rough idea of what's going on. If you look at the map, you'll see that. Because can you tell me where exactly Newton Lower falls and Oak Hill? What's the separating between those two? Where's the line? Yeah.

So, and GLA, is that a number from the database? Yes.

And you see it all the time. It's a gross living area. And if you look at the definition of it, it says it's the first and second floor minus a garage. Okay. And, but, but sometimes talking to Jim, he says, sometimes they do include a third or as a GLA, but not always. Unfortunately, it's not, you can't tell by the assessor's database what they're exactly including in the GLA.

You know, they use, when they give you numbers in their database, they give you, I think it's effective area, gross building, and building area. Why didn't you choose, like, the building area is the one closest to what, when I look at my house, it's one closest to what my house actually, what I think of as the gross area of my house. Why wouldn't you use that number?

Generally, the GLA is the closest to FAR. Like I said, because I wanted to kind of, bring it back to the FAR. And so TLA is the first and second floor, usually, first and second floor minus the garage. So I was looking at, okay, let's go see, and I started down the list of the 400 things. Who has a garage? Is it in the basement? Is it on the first floor? Do we add it back in? To kind of figure out a rough idea for FAR. Now, as you know, for FAR, You know, the basement is part of it if it's exposed, if it's on a hill, but that's not most of them. And then most of the builders nowadays know how to not include the third floor into the FVR. You know, they play a little bit of the game so that it's less than 50% of the floor below, so therefore it won't pound and, you know, seven feet and the whole bit. So... I wanted to kind of go back to the FAR, so that's why I was using the GLA. And like I said, the GLA is your first, for the most part, it's your first and second floor.

So, interesting. piece of data that I would love to have would be how many small houses on small lots or small houses on big lots that didn't get torn down, how much did they sell for over the last five years? Because then we'll understand what the premium is for the teardown issue. You know, did they sell significantly less than the ones that got torn down or are they about the same? I would love to know if there is a premium in what developers are paying for these teardowns.

So I think, go ahead.

Can I just clarify that real quick? Sure. Small homes on large lots and then compare them and then compare two groups, ones that were torn down or replaced or just sold as is.

Yeah, whatever small houses were sold over the last five years, regardless of the size of their lot, what did they sell for versus what did the ones that tore down sell for? So we could learn if there's a premium, if the developers are paying a premium to get these houses quickly and tear them down. I think it might be useful to know.

This is something I can...

I just have one last question, and it's not really a question. It's more of a comment. So this is interesting data. I mean, it's confirming what we already knew.

And Mr. Chair, this is sort of directed at you, I think, maybe, or all of us, actually. One of the things, if we're going to get ourselves to a proposed solution or a proposed outcome, I really think we need to talk as a committee about what we would like to see as an outcome. Do we want less teardowns? Is that the only thing? Do we want teardowns in smaller houses to be built? Do we want tear downs, but as long as you build two houses instead of one, that's okay. So I would love to have, what are the options that we could get to as a proposed outcome from this study? And what do we think as the committee of those, as a straw vote to give guidance to the planning department about what outcome we're looking for here? So I think that this is after we have the data analysis and so forth, but- It's just as a very important part of this whole process is understanding what it is we want to have happen at the end of the day.

I appreciate that. Other questions. Let me go to the counselor. Yes.

Okay. Thank you so much for this work. It's an incredible accomplishment. And it's like, hooray to the two of you. I commend you to no end. Now I'm trying to get to the place where, what does it tell us, you know, because I sort of feel as if, you know, you can start looking at just, you know, a high level, you know, sort of information, but a little bit to what Councilor Oppelart was getting to, but mostly, you know, just even in terms of what I'm seeing, you know, is that Which slots are the most vulnerable? You know, which homes in the community are the most at risk? You know, the SR2s and the MR1s are jumping out. Okay. So I then need to, we even need to do a deeper dive, you know, in the sense of like the corollary between what can be built on those lots and how they extrapolate to dollars in terms of the builders, you know, in terms of that factor fold that you were just, you know, showing how much of an increase, you know, in terms of the purchase price to what you're selling for. So that's an interpretation of what the market will provide in the sense of what the developers see as the most profitable flipping of properties. So I just sort of feel as if this is giving us a preliminary sort of overview of content and we need it in terms of just even being able to ask those kinds of questions. But I also wonder whether or not any sort of other opportunities present themselves Through the analysis of this data.

Let's just take that as a to be continued question. Correct.

It's just that, you know, the first pass at this and just sort of, what does it say? What is it telling us?

And I just said the comment and knowing how much effort went into this, as far as I know, this is The planning department did some wonderful work earlier on some examples and doing some analysis. But this, to the best of my knowledge, is the first attempt to try and get at a whole universe of what's happened over the last five years to see what is as best we can determine what is before and after. We haven't isolated causes. We haven't done anything. It's just saying there is a change in the housing stock going on. by degrees, by demolition, being replaced by bigger and more expensive homes. We know that intuitively. We've heard it from them. And that's why people have been asking us to deal with this question. That's why we have this item before us. But knowing much more about the specifics and where they are and what kind of they are and all of that is really, I think, advanced our understanding. Now, again, where we go with that is going to be another conversation. But I do want to make sure we get questions out Councilor Gordon and then Councilor Alderman.

Thank you, Chair.

Oh, I thought you had your hand up. And then I'll go to Councilor Alderman.

So Councilor Albright said that this confirms what we already knew. First, I want to really thank you for this incredible deep dive here. And this is way worse than what I knew anecdotally. The pricing that you showed us from purchase price to either rentals or what the developers are getting is astonishing to me. And I really think that Newton is moving in the wrong direction in terms of affordability. So just to Raina's point, figuring out where we go with that was very surprising. And also to the point about wondering about premiums, Pam, I don't know if you want to share, but you were telling me about a house that sold recently where the owners had put in all of this extra money to make their house, and I know people who do this, to make their, so that they can sell their house for more, and it is not a deterrent to a developer to then take all new things and still tear down the house, and that feels so wasteful to me.

Yeah, that example, and actually, I went back in, and this is with ISD, it says when the files were loaded in, but they were files from a few years ago. So they didn't recently update it. But still, I mean, this one, it's on a very big lot. And I think it's an SR1. And yeah, it's a little less than an acre. And it's sold for $2.2 million to a developer. And the house, the GFA on that house was $33.72 square feet. And the developer is building a 11,300 square foot home on it. And he's tearing that down and putting that on there. From what I've been looking at, that's going to list for over 10 million in that house.

You also found that

owners were putting yeah and so 100 or 200 yeah into a house yeah they did this one i thought they did it right before because that's when the drawings were put into the isd database but then when i opened the drawings the data on them were a couple years earlier so so there i learned my lesson i can't just look at what isd said they uploaded the file and 2022 means I thought, okay, it was from around that time, but it was actually a couple of years previous. This was, I have to say, there's a lot of clicks and you got to go down so many different levels and finding the data and that was tedious.

To say this is a deep dive is an understatement. How's the rope?

Nobody else? I'm very mindful protocol. But I'm recognizing. Thank you. Okay. So great work. Um, I share, um, a lot of Susan's questions and I want to build on something counselor. All right. So this strikes me as further, um, validating what we already know, which is small lots, something large, large, small houses, large lots are vulnerable to redevelopment. Um, and one of the things that I'd like to kind of raise as a thought is large lot zoning has been around for over 50 years. These small homes has been around for, in some cases over 40, 50 years. What has changed is market demand, right? 40 years ago, there was not a demand for 4,500 square foot home, 5,000 square foot home. We're now seeing that, right? So the problem we have is a problem of market demand. I agree wholeheartedly with Councilman Borden that this is not the kind of housing we want, but understanding that it is market demand that is driving this. And that is our problem. Any other issue as a cause of this has pre-existed for at least 50 years. Okay. Point the second. The goals, there are many goals that we've talked about. I'm with, again, I'm with Councilor Gordon 100% on this. I think we should be laser focused on creating or preserving or preserving and creating smaller homes, modest homes. And I think 2000 square feet feels like a good bogey. But we've also talked about other issues, including aesthetics, sizes of the buildings, trees. I think we need to, as a group, as a council, obviously, I'm not on ZAP that's going to do the first cut at this, but we need to have a set of goals that are prioritized. Why do we want to, what is it we're trying to accomplish by reducing teardowns and redevelopment? or changing the nature of teardowns and redevelopment? Okay. You know how to get to it, Councillor Baker, right? What is the cost of achieving whatever goals that we want to achieve? And I think Councillor Albright's question is extremely important, although I would shift it a little bit. And that is, properties that are not right for redevelopment. Small houses on small lots. A bunch of them in my neighborhood, they're built out to the FAR and all the other relevant constraints, and they sell for a million, two million, three million, five. Is there a premium for that development opportunity? or not. And that cuts both ways. If there's a premium, then there's a direct subsidy that homeowners would be paying for us to achieve our goals. If it's not, then our efforts to maintain these homes as affordable looks a little sus because Trying to maintain a $1.5 billion home is affordable. Just that's not affordable. It's barely attainable. OK. So knowing the dates of original sales would be useful information to count to the right. Comps on similar properties. The other subsidy that is relevant here is the tax subsidy, right? what would be really useful to know is what is the tax, what are the tax receipts on these homes pre-sale and what are the tax receipts on these homes post-sale? Because again, we need to understand our goals relative to their costs. If we are going to both make good decisions and sell those decisions to the public, right? If you've tripled the value And is it a good use of city money, because tax subsidies are just as much subsidies as direct subsidies, is it a good use of city money to maintain so-called attainable homes at $1.5 million? Revenue. Okay, so pre tear down tax receipts post replacement tax receipts. And again, coming back to what Councillor Albright said is, I think we need to talk about. Oh, I just want to make one thing clear. I don't think I was clear enough about it. I don't think the comps on small houses on large lots that did not get redeveloped really matters much because those people are competing with developers anyway, right? So what matters is small houses on small lots. If I got a 2,000 square foot home on a 5,000 square foot lot, no development opportunity. If I got a 2,000 square foot home on a 10,000 square foot lot, I've got development opportunity. If everything else is the same, reflect the development bonus and that's money that if we restrict that is going to come out of the property owners pocket as well. Okay so again I want to come back to where should we be going from here. I think we really need to hammer out a list of what our priorities are because there are a lot of goals with eliminating teardowns and redevelopment and that we've discussed, what are the top priorities in order? And then secondly, really nailing down, which we can figure out, both the indirect subsidy by the opinion comps and the direct or sorry, the subsidy from the homeowners, which is looking at comps, and the subsidy from tax revenue, which is looking at the difference between the tax receipts before the sale and after the sale, after the redevelopment and sale.

So let me recommend that we're canceling.

Oh, one of the things that, getting back to your data that you want, there are some people, when they sell their house, don't want to sell to developers. Like when I bought my house, I was a little of a spit that they wanted to sell it to a family. There's a house in Lower Falls they're putting out, they want to sell it to a family. And so that, we don't know how much or how often that is in there.

out the small house on the large lot that doesn't get redeveloped because that's noise. You can't draw a conclusion. But developers are not in the market for small houses on small lots because they can't redevelop them. And so that's the comparable. So yes, I think that happens. Anecdotally, there's plenty. It would be very difficult to figure out when that happens. Plus, it doesn't add anything to our understanding of the premium.

I appreciate the comment. I'm going to recommend the department here in a second, but I wanted to comment. I respectfully disagree with my colleague. We have heard time and again in this community about the importance of attainable housing as well as affordable housing. Affordable and subsidized, we know that. But here we have a situation where we are losing on a weekly basis two or three properties that are at the lower end of our price point and provide opportunities for families to move in or rent in the city to much more expensive houses. Basically, if this were a neighborhood, we'd be talking about gentrification, and we'd be very much concerned about that. We wouldn't be talking about premiums. We'd be talking about windfalls. And I think it's important to understand that part of the challenge that we've been wrestling with as a committee over a long time It's been that we are by degrees changing the character of the city into a higher income community. And that is an issue that this committee and the members of the council have talked about over and over again. And we're hearing from citizens all the time about it. So I agree with the term of respectfully of referring to these as subsidies. There are choices that the community has made. We made choices when we set the available zoning And we'll hear from Mr. Lee a little bit later tonight about some of the changes in the state law that affect our ability to affect zoning. But my concern is that I want the committee to be able to follow through at least on the questions that have been asked us over and over again, which is, can we do something about the number of teardowns and demolitions we're seeing in the city, which are being replaced by larger, more expensive homes? And that's where I intend to take the committee discussion.

So another point, can I have an opportunity to respond to that? No, not right now. Okay, that's fine.

Yeah, so it predates my time with Nguyen, but I do know that we have some presentations from the last couple of years on file that address some of the questions that were raised tonight. So we'd be happy to recirculate those.

We can do that later. Okay, thank you. Okay.

Mr.

Chair, could I just raise an issue?

Mr. Chair, the camera has moved so that we can't see the right side of the table. I don't know if Miles has control over that or not, but it was fine before, and now that's better. Thank you, Miles. Or I don't know who's ever doing that, but thank you.

I don't know who's ever doing that.

One of the assets we look for in our clerks is people with vision, and here we have it. So thank you for that. Counselor Roach, I do want to let you respond.

I understand.

All right. Okay. I think part of what we want to do is to start this process alone, and we'll figure out where we go from here. But I did want to, again, thank Counselor Wright and our intern again, Mr. Gelmert, for taking on the task of trying to at least understand where we are. Again, where we go is a whole other question, but certainly a surprise to me to know the scale of the difference in both size and price between what we started with and what we've ended up with. And I think that's an important dimension. What we do as a result of that, again, is gonna be part of our conversation. Okay. I'd like now to move to Mr. Lee. This is not a formal docket item, but I think the Chair's note indicated that we often hear from our city solicitor on matters that help us understand what to do and how we can do it. The landscape has changed recently at the state level in terms of what local governments can do, at least local governments outside of Boston, can do as a matter of zoning power. And I'd ask Mr. Lee if he'd be willing to give us a briefing of some of those changes so that we can think about where we're going. But I wouldn't expect us to make those decisions tonight. But at least we ought to know the universe that we're working in.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Miles, can I share my screen? Yeah, you should be able to.

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Fair point. I just had entertain a motion of all 271.26. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Abstentions? Ayes have it. Thank you for reminding me.

Can we get a bigger shot of that?

No, everyone has to squint. I'm sorry. I need to focus out. It's like

Andrew Lee, for some reason it's frozen. Andrew Lee, You are you are you got to do better there.

Andrew Lee, Give me a second it uh it froze on me, so I need to now figure out how to.

Andrew Lee, feel better.

Andrew Lee, There we go, so thank you, Mr chair, my name is Andrew Lee i'm the senior assistant city solicitor here in newton. And as the chair stated, I'm going to give you a high level overview of some recent changes to chapter 48, the statute for zoning.

We can't see you or the slides. So let's say we have a choice of if we take you or the slide, but a black screen is not as much fun.

Okay.

It looks to us, Andrew, that you've paused your screen sharing.

Yeah, I'm going to close it. And then I'm going to bring here. Let me try it this way. I'm working on a dual monitor, so I think it's punishing me for that. Sure. Blame the technology. Isn't that the go-to?

I believe that I applaud all the time.

AI is the new scapegoat.

There we go. You got it.

OK. Now let me bring it into the PowerPoint mode. Okay. So again, high overview. The legislation, the state legislation or legislature recently amended Chapter 48 in several respects with regards to zoning. I'm going to highlight two specific changes that are very germane to the Zoning and Planning Committee and the work that you're doing and really needs to be taken into consideration with any zoning changes that are going to be made or considered.

And I think you've got we're seeing presenter view not presentation view.

Still doing that it's your notes, we can see.

The next thing is doing the next screen. Apologies i've done this many times and never had any issues but. Let's give it a third try.

You've got, it looks like you're not in slideshow yet.

You're just. Yep. It's making me wait a little bit after I click it. Now, is this showing the presentation as it should be or not?

No.

You know what?

It's close enough. We can see it.

Okay. I'm just going to continue. Let me know if something's too small. I can't see it. I'll try to blow it up. So an important note about the amendments to Chapter 48 are that it was effective as of July 1st of this year. There is no action by the municipality or any municipality. It is just the new law. So the first item I'm going to cover are amendments Chapter 48, Section 6, and these have to do with nonconforming protections. And I know you all know this, but I just wanted to set the baseline with regards to what illegal nonconformity is. Illegal nonconformity at its most basic level is an existing or beginning use or structure that is lawful at the time that it existed or was initially constructed or started. But afterwards, there was a zoning amendment where that same structure cannot be built that same way. And this is important because what the statute does, apologies, there's a significant delay every time I'm pressing the button to have it move forward.

We can see the next slide.

So what that non-conforming status does is it allows protections for that structure or use, meaning, of course, that that structure doesn't comply with current zoning anymore because the zoning had changed. However, it's not a violation because it lawfully existed at the time that it was constructed or begun. Therefore, it has this protection that it can not only exist, it can actually be enlarged or altered. But there's a process by which it needs to follow. The first major change with regards to nonconforming protections is the timing. Previously, by operation of Chapter 40A, if a building permit or a special permit was issued prior to the first publication notice of a zoning amendment, because as you all know, a zoning amendment requires publication in the newspaper for two consecutive weeks. So if that special permit or building permit was issued prior to that first publication of notice for that zoning amendment, it would be protected, even if it didn't comply with that new zoning that changed. That's changed now. So now it's not a building permit or a special permit that was issued. But instead, if the applicant or the building owner applies for a building permit or special permit prior to that first notice of publication, they get that nonconforming protection. Next is I explain that there's a process by which a non-conforming use or structure can be extended or altered. Prior to the amendments to Chapter 48, that process required approval by the special permit granting authority, which in the case of NUNA is the city council. And what the city council would have to find is They would have to find that whatever that alteration or extension of that non-conforming use of structure is, couldn't be substantially more detrimental than the existing non-conforming use of structure. It's known colloquially as a Section 6 binding, and I'm sure you've heard that term before. So that is the standard that's applied by the City Council when they are considering a change of an existing non-conforming use. For many non-conformities, legal non-conformities, the standard hasn't changed. The process hasn't changed. You still need approval of the city council to extend or alter that non-conformity, except in some very key respects. And this, I think, is the biggest change with regards to the treatment of legal non-conformities. If your structure is non-conforming because of lot size or shape, frontage, lack of the required amount of frontage, or lot coverage floor area ratio, you don't go to the city council for a section six finding. It's by right. You can expand that legal nonconformity by right. To be clear, this doesn't mean that you don't need a special permit or any change for for anything that otherwise would require special permits. So for example, if you have a building that is non-conforming as to FAR, but it's also non-conforming as to the setback, you would still have to go to the city council if you're going to expand that non-conformity as to FAR and the setback, because you still need a Section 6 finding for that extension or alteration of the setback non-conformity. If you are expanding the FAR, non-conforming FAR, and you're, for example, building a retaining wall that's greater than four feet, you still have to go to city council for that special permanent leave for the retaining wall. The only thing that you're allowed to do by right is to expand the non-conforming as to FAR, for example. Also, any extension or alteration that could be done by right, that that change still has to comply with the dimensional regulations in effect in zoning for the building height stories, as well as the setback. Here's a graphic that was actually put together by the planning department. They did a great job just demonstrating what these kinds of FARs could, or I'm sorry, what these kinds of nonconformities could look like, and then the pathways that are available if they want to do a change to it. So for example, I'm going to use the floor area ratio because I think it's the easiest one. If you have, again, a structure that exceeds the current floor area ratio, but it is a legally nonconforming structure, you could expand, extend that structure FAR, the legally non-conforming FAR, without any city council approval. So you can do it by right, but you can only build it up to the setbacks, the allowable setbacks, as well as the allowable height and stories that are allowed under the current zoning. So now moving on to the second item, the second change to Chapter 48 that has some impact with regards to considerations. Senator?

Yes. Hang on a second. Before you go to variances, I just want to pause to that and go back to the last slide for a minute because I think there may be a couple of questions from people just to try and understand what's going on. But let me just summarize what I thought I heard you say, which is if a property is non-conforming, it can do what it wants without a Section 6 finding as long as it stays within the envelope of the setbacks and of the height and the stories. Is that a fair summary? I mean, so height, setbacks and stories are limiting factors for nonconforming properties now. Stonie Cooper- Other things that's as long as you stay within that effective envelope that's basically saying hi hi and how much of the lot you can you know how far out on the lot, you can go in various directions, you can if you're not conforming you can build in inside that envelope, as I understand that. Stonie Cooper- that's correct okay. I just have a couple of questions on this. First, Councilor Wright, then Councilor Gatz.

So in Newton zoning, what's controlling the size or the massing of the house is FAR, floor area ratio, except for a single story house, which no developer really builds. And then that's block coverage. So basically, let's say this example, let's say FAR for a house is at 0.45. Okay, that's what's in the zoning. It's 0.45. And we do have neighborhoods where the lots are small and the houses are bigger. And the actual FAR for that house is 0.5. So if they keep the setbacks and just the setbacks, they basically could do an FAR of 1.3 on that lot. And yes or no. And then second.

Okay. I didn't understand one part of your fact pattern. So the existing FAR is legally conforming to the zoning ordinance. It meets the requirements under the zoning ordinance, yes?

Let's say the zoning ordinance says FAR for that lot is 0.45, but the house is at 0.5.

And when the house was constructed, it was legally constructed at 0.5.

Yeah, well, it was before FAR, so it didn't have that to go. But it's now at 0.5, which is what it is there. So what I'm hearing is, is then they continue to build the FAR, and they only have the setbacks. And our setbacks, basically, I need to calculate it, but I would think would give you an FAR of 1.2, 1.5.

That's right. They can extend that non-conforming FAR by right. And the limitations are going to be based on the setbacks as well as the building height and stories.

Yeah. And right now with the FARs, yeah.

So the FAR, the effective FAR could be much larger. Correct.

Can they also like add units too or no?

No, adding units isn't part of the changes to the statute's application to legal nonconformities.

Okay, so basically, you just can make a giant house. Now, can they tear down?

Wait a minute. I didn't answer. You just make a giant house, right? It just works.

Can they tear it down? Yeah, of course they can tear it down. Tearing down a house does not make it lose its legal non-conforming status.

Okay, so they could tear down the house that's at 0.5 FAR and build a house that's at 1.5 FAR.

If they're meeting the setback and height and story requirement, then yes.

Okay, I'll do some calculations tomorrow.

All right, are we ready to move on to various?

Basically, this is allowing the massing of the houses that everyone's complaining about to triple or quadruple what's there for houses that are not conforming and maybe the planning department know, but I think 80% of the homes are not conforming.

Or 84. I can paraphrase what essentially this law is getting at. The more you make something non-conforming, the more freedom they have. Because the goal is to make the zoning so that the lots are conforming, the properties are conforming.

But it's hard to do when you put zoning on an already built-up city.

Well, he's not responsible for the change. He's just trying to make sure we understand what it is.

And one more question.

I want to get to, is this a follow-up? Yeah, follow-up.

So if the line is a conforming, non-conforming, or let's say for frontage, but they do conform to FAR, they can extend the FAR, it doesn't matter?

No, they can only extend it, but then up to the FAR if they're not already legally conforming as to FAR. Does that make sense? So then if you, arguably speaking, if you're non-conforming as to frontage, pretty much any expansion in your house is probably going to need a Section 6 binding because there's a strong argument you're extending that nonconforming because you couldn't build on that law anyways until, you know, under the current zoning. But if you are meeting the FAR requirements, then you're not, you have no legally nonconforming protection status for that FAR.

Okay. I think that's the one that most people are worried about is FAR.

This is a little counterintuitive, but I just want to be clear and follow up on Councilor Wright's If you have a house that's underneath the floor area ratio allowed, so the floor area ratio, say, is 0.3 and your house occupies 0.2, you can't go building it in any bigger than 0.3 because that's the allowed FAR and you're under it. But if the FAR is 0.3 and your house is 3.1, You can build as big as you want as long as you stay within the setbacks and the stories. So not that this makes sense, folks, as a planning policy. It's just that's what the rules are, as we understand, right?

And what was the purpose for this?

I can actually address that. In other communities, they don't have this exact problem, right? Like in Foxborough, where I've worked previously in Attleboro before that, um where you get teardowns is typically it's not economical to replace a single family with a single family for example so usually when there's a teardown of some sort and a developer wants to build something like a duplex or a small multi-family or something like that so this was intended to help those types of projects along it was not really tailor-made for newton's issues So it's just Newton is, I think, experiencing some unintended consequences of the state regulation here.

Okay. All right. Sorry.

I keep missing you.

It's so weird. We cannot see your face. We just see your PowerPoint. Okay. Oh, now I can. Oh, yay. Okay. All right. So my question is about the ZBA's discretionary control of the process.

We're not there yet. I need to talk about variances next. Mr. Lee, I'm in section six.

I am in the existing structures, uses and permits. And I'm looking at, you know, language, red line language. And I'm looking at pre-existing non-conforming structures or uses may be extended or altered provided that no such extension or alteration shall be permitted unless there is a finding by the permit granting authority or by the special permit granting authority designated by ordinance. That such change, extension or alteration shall not be substantially more detrimental than the existing non-conforming use. So that's why I'm asking this question about ZVA, you know, well, why is this language there? It's in Section 6. He hasn't gotten there.

Well, hold on. So then it sounds to me, Councilor Goetz, as if you're conflating two things. So when we're talking about the legal, the standard you just read, which I refer to and explained as a Section 6 finding, right? Let me go back to this slide because I think it does a good job of clarifying it. Okay. Okay. So the prior law was any extension or alteration of a legally nonconforming protection requires a Section 6 finding. It requires that finding that you just read. And that finding is made by the Special Permagranding Authority of the City Council in you. So you with me there? Okay. The changes, that still applies to most extension or alterations of legal nonconformities, except in the case when that extension or alteration of legal nonconformity is to the lot size, frontage, or lot coverage or floor area ratio. If that is the type of legal nonconformity that's afforded to that structure, that can be extended or altered by right. without a Section 6 finding, without any input from the City Council.

All right. I'm not seeing except in my language here, but it's interesting to me because it's a carve-out.

I'm looking at the language right now, and it says, provided, however, notwithstanding the foregoing, pre-existing non-conforming structures, residential uses, they do not conform to zoning because of lot size or shape, frontage, lot coverage, et cetera, what I just stated. So I used except to make it more clear, notwithstanding the foregoing is the language used in the statute.

Got it. Okay. So this is, to me, is a carve-out.

It is a carve-out. It's a carve-out that's making an exception for legal nonconformities that exist because of lot size of shape, frontage, lot coverage, or FAR. And those ones can be extended by right.

It is an exception that has a giant swallowing sound as it expands to absorb a lot of the room. That's basically what we're saying.

Thank you.

All right. Okay. Okay. Mr. Lee, variances. We want to get on to the rezoning.

Wait, so they can do this now?

Two days. Two days.

By right, they can go back.

Two days. That is the law of the common law. Two days. So...

Amanda and the planning director stole a little bit of my thunder where at the end I was going to explain really the impact of all of these or unintended consequences and what it means if you make a change to the zoning. I'll still table that to the end, but I wanted to let you know that I am going to end on that note. The other aspect of zoning that was amended are variances. So variances are basically permission to deviate from zoning, to do something that zoning doesn't allow. And the Zoning Board of Appeals here, now the ZDA, they're the body of the jurisdiction over variances to hear applications of whether or not to grant a variance. In the prior law, the required determination for a variance, the bar was very high. You could only get a variance if you're able to demonstrate that strict compliance with the zoning ordinance would result in substantial hardship. And that substantial hardship was due to unique conditions of the lot itself, the soil conditions, lot shape, or topography of the land or structures. So that was the prior law. Here's the change. The ZBA is still the permit granting authority. However, they can grant a variance upon a determination that enforcement of the zoning ordinance. Strict compliance would result in practical difficulty for the applicant. So a change from substantial hardship to practical difficulty. In addition, what the ZBA has to do is they have to weigh the benefits to the applicant and to the public interest. And in the statute itself, it specifically says a public interest is the production of housing. So they have to weigh that against the detriments to the public health and safety and the welfare of the affected neighborhood. So that's the weighing that they have to do to make a determination of whether or not there's practical difficulty to the applicant. And the statute goes further and says, in making that balancing determination, the ZBA may consider, they don't have to, but they may consider the unique conditions of the law itself, the exact kind of same considerations stand by before were required to be made to make a finding of a variance. They can take into consideration the financial hardship for the petitioner. They can take into consideration whether or not the petitioner can achieve the same goal through some different method and also whether or not the practical difficulty was self-created. It's really important to emphasize that they may consider these because this is not an exhaustive list. The ZBA can consider all sorts of other information and evidence they find in the record to support their balancing of whether or not the practical difficulty exists, whether or not there's more weight going to the public interest aspect of what the relief is being requested or the adverse impacts, the detriments to the neighborhood. So I think the practical way I like to think about this is what this change did is it really raised the ability for someone to seek a variance. However, it didn't take away the discretion of the ZBA. There's no mandate in this statute that they have to grant anything, but it does say that they have to consider certain things. So they will have to make certain findings, shift their focus a little bit. But in terms of their discretion, they still have it. They still can put conditions on variances just as they were able to do before. And what I'm going to end on is I highlighted these two changes with regards to 48 because and I think Amanda did put it really well, which is there are unintended consequences if there's going to be changes to zoning. Any change to zoning is going to create nonconformities. And now what that means is in certain cases, the zoning amendment is going to create more nonconformities as to, for example, FAR. Now if the FAR is lowered and there are more structures that actually have FAR nonconformity protection, they can expand it by right. Also, any sort of control that is more restricted on the variant side, now there's an opportunity for that applicant, that building owner, to ask for a variance, whereas before, they would not have been able to meet the bar. Obviously, every single one of these analyses need to be done on a case-by-case basis, whether it be whatever the proposed zoning amendment is, to look at what those consequences are under the purview and lens of this new changes to 48, or if it's a specific variance that's being requested. So that was the main purpose of this presentation so that the zoning and planning committee as you continue to work are of course aware of it, but then have these considerations in your mind when you are discussing any potential change to the zoning.

Thank you, Mr. Lee. Now, I have a bunch of questions. I just mind that we've got items that are going to put this whole understanding to the test when we talk about changes to make the zoning informed in use, but I mean, try and make sure we get everybody's questions and we can have Mr. Lee return for another conversation on a specific, but Councilor Wright and Councilor- Okay, so question for Mr. Lee.

So if we change the FAR and let's say we lower the FAR just outright, then we have all these nonconforming and we can build it. But if we change the FAR like Lexington for teardowns, so you have an FAR 0.5, I'm just throwing out numbers, um and and the house is below 0.5 let's say it's 0.4 and now you lower the far if it tears down let's say to 0.3 the house as standing is conforming with far but if they would rebuild it because it's a tear down they can't build it that large how does that react to the section six

I don't think that that kind of circumvention of a legally not conforming protection would be permitted. I understand what you're saying, that technically speaking, that property, that structure is legally conforming until they tear it down. But I believe the courts would look at when was the ordinance amended and what could that property owner do at that time? versus after it was amended, what it is that they're able to do and afford the property legally non-conforming protections that existed at the time that the ordinance was amended as opposed to when the property was demolished.

So if we made that change before Section 6 came into law, we'd be okay? But now if we do it after that?

No, it wouldn't have mattered. It wouldn't matter now. But I would just be I'm cautious about getting a firm opinion until we have an opinion opportunity because this is a very difficult issue. I wouldn't want Mr. Lee's comments necessarily be cited as back at us if we ever got into litigation.

Okay, one other real quick thing is, so those small lots, small houses on the small lots now wouldn't be desirable because they're over at the yard.

Well, let's do that.

So I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off, but I do want to just build on something that council Baker said, which is everyone needs to keep in mind. This is some, well, this is brand new, these changes that are, that have been made. Right. And then with regards to the intent, I can't speak to exactly what the intent was as well as the planning director, but it seems clear just from looking at the text changes, it's to make construction easier. What type of construction? I don't know how well that was thought out or at least how it applies to Newton, but construction in general easier. So really any attempts to kind of to affect that goal is probably going to run up against an issue because of that amendment to Chapter 48. But any specific proposal that you have will require additional analysis, research to make sure that we've arrived at the right understanding of what those consequences may or may not be from that zoning amendment.

Thank you. I just want to make sure I don't want to have an opinion out there that may not apply in a specific case and then we're in trouble. Councillor Block, excuse me, Councillor Goetz and then Councillor Oliver. I want to get the people in the room and then go to come.

You want me to talk now or no?

Wait a minute, I got to get the people.

Okay, I just didn't understand your comment.

Well, I didn't understand myself, never mind. It's considered an operator error, but let me go ahead and answer that.

Okay. Attorney Lee, I have some specific questions regarding, you know, within here, and thank you for sort of even highlighting the fact that the ZBA has discretionary power, because that's actually something that I think was really concerning to me, you know, in terms of all of the, now this new sort of list of what can and can't be considered, you know, when a variance is in front of them. So I wanted to know, you know, is practical difficulty legally defined anywhere? I mean, this was a bizarre kind of wording, you know, that I'd never heard before.

It's not. I'll share with you that the Mass Municipal Lawyers Association and the listserv has had significant discussion with regards to these changes and The overwhelming opinion is that this standard of practical difficulty is going to be employing land use attorneys for a good bit because no one knows exactly what it means right now.

Okay. All right. Just because it was hard for me to drag anything on it, it was like gone. It was like, what does this mean? Okay. And then the other question I had was it sort of pulled into the conversation financial hardship. And I know at the CBA when they're considering 40Bs, they can actually even hire a consultant to go through the process of actually the financial review of a project. Is this something that's going to be heightened in your mind in the sense of like, is it now going to be yet another sort of caveat that they have to prove the financial hardship at the level, you know, within the ZBA?

So it's a may consider. The ZBA does not have to consider it. And then also I would, I'd have to defer to the ZBA and how they decide to proceed.

All right, all right and then I just sort of feel as if this is a a gate that they need to go through in order to to get the variance in order to be able to proceed with the issuance of the building part. So this is actually something that they have to first get the variance. Yes.

Thank you counselor over I think you had your hand.

I'm sorry my that just for my brain for a second. I guess my question has to do with something that maybe you intentionally didn't go deeper into. And that was the, you had said that they can get a variance for use. If I heard, if I read that one now, now you can get a variance for use. And I'm curious if that, like, what is that? Does that mean someone can come along and say, HAB-Jacques Juilland, In the middle of some residential neighborhood I would like a variance to erect. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Some sort of commercial structure open a business their plan to flag, so to speak, and open a business like in the middle of a you know sr to neighborhood.

They could ask for it. They could have asked for it under the prior version as well. But I think a more likely situation is if you do the inverse of your example. If you have a commercial district where residential isn't allowed, and they say they want to build residential there. That use isn't allowed there, so they can get a variance to allow. So the ZVA can say, well, you know what? It's not allowed, but we're going to give you a variance to say you can't build a residential use there.

But most I understand your point. Most of our lots have at least some level of residential, so it would probably then depend on, like, if someone came along and said in a, I want to build a 6 story residential building. I don't think we can grant that even by special permit the way it's currently written.

Mm.

Hmm. So. But that being the case, they can now go directly to the ZBA, ask for that variance, skip the counsel, so to speak, and request that variance, right?

In terms of could they ask that? Absolutely.

Awesome. I think, again, what I'm taking away, if I can, Mr. Lee, is that the legal authority of the ZBA has been expanded to vary the the zoning as currently in the city. However, the ZBA still has a discretion whether to grant that additional variance.

That's absolutely correct.

And while that additional authority is there and additional considerations can be and should be considered, it doesn't mean that there will be a massive change in the practice We have to wait and see. We're dependent on the members of the DBA making a decision on a case-by-case basis. But that's what I'm understanding from what you said. Is that accurate?

They'll have to make it on a case-by-case basis. We have no indication that there's going to be a significant departure from their prior analyses on these petitions that they get. Of course, I think the key is the authority that they do have to grant it is larger. They don't have to use that authority.

Yeah, that's all. Yeah. But there's a difference between, you know, authority and action.

And that's what you're making a point.

All right. Now, let me go to members, not only committee, you raise your hand, but anybody in the room. Okay. Councilor Block, you're now up.

Thank you. I just wanted to bring everybody's attention to the ZBA hearing, which ruled on a variance under the new definition. And if you haven't, I think it was the July ZBA meeting, you may want to watch that. The reason I was watching was because it was in Ward 4. And so I was paying attention to that. And the variance was from Walmart to establish a mini distribution center, which is limited by our zoning to 10,000 square feet. And they wanted to use a little over 20,000 square feet. They asked for a zoning variance and it was granted. This has nothing to do with housing. I understand Attorney Lee's point, which I agree with, that the main purpose of these changes is to encourage more housing to be built. Um, and this may fall on may fall under the category of unintended consequence. Although I'm not positive about that because nobody in the legislature is really being that forthcoming with what the intent was behind all of this. And that may be a little bit beside the point, but I just bring this to the committee's attention because our, our, our representatives, um, Schwartz and Sangiolo, and I see Sangiolo is on this call so she may know what I'm about to say, they are eager to hear what changes to the statute we might recommend to them that would cushion these or eliminate possibly some of these unintended consequences. So yes, we have to live with this now and we can explore what it means and it will be on a case-by-case basis but i wouldn't give up on the idea of of um developing proposals which are um sort of newton delegation can take back to the legislature and work on so so please do that i i'm not gonna I'm not going to mention the content of what I've suggested. It doesn't really matter. I think everybody will have different ideas about how to improve what these changes have led to. So that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Kelly, welcome, Chair of Land Use.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Through you, if I may, to Mr. Lee, as the chair of the committee that wags the tail of the dog that ZAP and the state often set in motion, I'm curious, Mr. Lee, if you can give us either a broad brush or a specific prediction about how the special permit process through the Land Use Committee of the City Council will change as a result of these changes at the state level to the variance and the ZBA powers. We're just trying to think ahead about what might change for us on the Land Use Committee.

I don't have a crystal ball. The only thing that would make sense to me though is that there would be less requests for Section 6 findings because some of them are allowed by right now. The rest of it I can't say.

There was no change for Section 9, for example. The 48, which is a special permit section of the general law. But your, your business may go down a little.

Yeah. Which I don't think we would complain about. I would just like to get a handle on what the nature of that might be. You know, we deal, in land use, we deal with more with Jonah Temple than Andrew Lee, who I have worked with over the years on other things in wonderfully productive ways. And Jonah has said, I don't know, we need more direction from the state, but you were doing this presentation to ZAP tonight, so I thought I would take the opportunity to see, I'm not asking for a crystal ball at all, of course, none of us have that, but what you might anticipate to be some changes in the In the oversight and the voting capacity of the city council as a whole, as a result of this.

I don't think there's going to be any change. Um, you know, like I said, in terms of the number possibly, but I couldn't possibly quantify it, but in terms of process for a special permit, no change.

Okay. Thank you very much. And thank you, Miles, for letting me finally co-host. It's been frustrating to just be an observer without the ability to raise my hand. So I appreciate you co-hosting me. Thanks.

We're grateful for Miles for all things technical. Anyway, all right. Any other questions for Mr. Lee? You're done. Any final words from you? We're okay.

Any other? The last thing I'd like to say is, of course, I've already said this is novel, this is new. If you have any questions, any kind of specific applications that you're thinking about, feel free to reach out to the law department.

OK. Thank you very much. OK. That was just a conversation, not an item. So we have no vote. But I want to thank you again for taking the time. And you'll provide your slides to the clerk so they can be attached to the report.

Okay. I wouldn't mind just voting no. No? No.

However, I will certainly entertain a request for a brief recess so that we can return and take up the last item of the two reappointments. So why don't we take five minutes? Okay. And reconvene. Okay. We'll be back.

Yes. Recording stopped.

Thank you.

I'm mindful that are recording in progress.

shorter, but still.

Oh, you got a place tomorrow.

Oh, we're eight.

We're just having a little place to store.

We're totally here. Your face wasn't on a pamphlet, wasn't it? No, I can't afford the $20,000.

Sorry. Is it is it signed and sealed? What are you going to get? I just don't know. We have a little part of it that's not quite Brooklyn and not quite Boston. It's only barely Newton, but it's .

As I've said before, our city clerk used to refer to it as East Newton. East Newton, that's where it is.

Are you near the .

No, she's south.

She doesn't even know where it is. I'm about to present it. I was waiting for the .

You want to come join us at the table? So, folks, we have a continued conversation of Item 5726, reconvening. The request for discussion and ordinance amendments to dimensional controls aligning use and zoning. This is Council of Oliver, Wright, Getz, Roach, Malachi, Kalis requesting discussion to determine alignment of dimensional controls for residential developments within BU lots with focused consideration for lots in and adjacent to residential neighborhoods. You recall that we have had this item before us several times, and we had asked the department to go back and try and give us more specificity about specific sites, including some photographs, which we very much appreciate. However, in the meantime, as we just heard from Mr. Lee, the zoning situation has changed so that part of the background that we need to provide the committee is to have the department build on Mr. Lee's presentation to tell us a little bit about what happens if we decide to do what we've been thinking about doing and where does that take us? So with that, I hope I had an introduction, but correct me if I'm wrong, I'm gonna turn the conversation over to Ms. Wolf and let her make her presentation.

Okay. So we're just as a reminder, we're talking about residential uses and business districts. We're going to give a little more background, particularly in relation to these changes that attorney Lee just presented. We're going to revisit the special permit criteria. We're going to look at some other rezoning considerations and then revisit the parcels that the counselors asked us to revisit. So just a reminder of where this started. In June, we talked about nonantum and rezoning anything that was beyond two parcels back from Adams Street. That was a residential use, but currently zoned commercial. And then we looked at the wider city. And then here we are looking at a more specific focus. I'm going to pass it over to Nora, who is on Zoom, to talk about the special permit criteria.

Wonderful, thank you, Amanda. So this will be brief. I know the meat of the presentation is really what Amanda will be speaking to in regard to the potential rezonings. But as the committee requested, we went back and explored different options for adding special permit criteria. And so here you can see in the section regarding residential use in the ground floor, This is what the section in the use table refers you to when you're looking to find out that residential use on the ground floor requires a special permit in the BU districts. And currently it is reserved. So we have come up with this language, which the committee could adopt for granting special permits with explicit findings that the proposed use is appropriate within the context of the neighborhood. So from feedback from the committee that the word context of the neighborhood or the phrase context of the neighborhood was important. This is the language that we came up with. Go to the next slide. So currently there are no specifications for ground floor residential and the possible addition would require the special permit granting authority to make a finding that the proposed use is appropriate within the context of the neighborhood. And instead of a general consideration for site appropriateness that is currently already baked into the special permit criteria, this would add explicit consideration of context of the neighborhood. Turning it back to you, Amanda.

Before you go, just to clarify, the site-specific criteria criteria still remains. It's not being replaced.

Correct. This is not replacing any existing special permit criteria.

I just want to be clear about that. Okay. Any comments from members of the committee? Councillor Guest and Councillor Oliver.

Just remind me, Ms. Cololo, did we ever consider massing in the wording here?

Not in the last discussion. I can't recall off the top of my head if the previous language we presented had the word massing, but I can go back and look.

I don't think so. I think it said something about the size.

There was some reference to either mass or mass.

But size of this, but it didn't have the context. So that's why we felt that there ought to be something about the context. I mean, the size would... and make the proposed use as appropriate. I guess the question that you're asking is the proposed use as constructed because it's the size, right? is that what you're asking is appropriate yeah i just wanted that sort of like that you know piece of it not it's it's missing now and it sort of seems like the question you're asking is if the use is now residential correct is that is that that may be perfectly appropriate in the context but the building may be out of scale in the context correct yes that's that was it was eliminating what needed to be there okay so um counselor oliver

I agree with that comment. The intent here, from my perspective as one of the original docketers of this, wasn't converting a B.U. lot in the middle of a residential neighborhood into a residential use. It was allowing that property owner to utilize in a residential use commercial controls. So it's exactly the math. It's 16 clean. Let's stop that was the point. Not don't allow residential use in a residential neighborhood.

It's massive. Let me ask you this. If you said the proposed use and scale is appropriate, or something like that, or size. I mean, I'm trying to get at. Yeah. The city.

You know, yes. Because otherwise we're going to end up back in a situation where it's small house, large law.

I think that we're just to do the department's defense in the sense they were using proposed use in a, in the context of what is before the, the special permit granting authority, the land use committee. But it's not just the uses, because we think about use as business or residential. It's really the use as constructed or proposed is really what you're asking about. And that context would involve something about size, it seems to me, and location, as well as the use, just to be clear. And I don't know whether that's something we could add in. as a committee and just say the proposed use size and location is appropriate within the context of the neighborhood, something like that. Would that do the job? Yeah, but we may not decide that tonight, but just to try and give the guidance to the department, I think it's difficult to do this on the fly, but Councillor Wright.

What if we change those BU lots in those residential neighborhoods to, you know, MR, then this wouldn't be a problem. So here they're talking more, so I see this talking more about Adams Street, you know, which is there, and I'm fine with first floor residential, but what the problem was was the side streets, and being, you know, BU has an FAR of one or one and a half versus 0.5 for a residential flat.

Well, we're going to get into that, but I think that we asked the department to give us both responses. And if we have those situations where a special permit could be granted, and we've been talking about those as relatively rare, but they could occur. And if there is no change in the zoning, you know, they will be special permit categories, candidates. to have something for that situation and how great or small a number is covered by it potentially would be a different question but that's at least I think something that adds something about scale and location would be an appropriate addition to that language okay but we leave it for the moment just give that if that's the sense of the committee we can leave the department to reflect on it okay so um Back to you. There's a question. Councillor Albright, sorry.

Thank you. So a question which maybe you're going to get to in a minute, but the Clinton, the Clinton, let me ask a question about Clinton and maybe my question will be clear. Are the surrounding houses in the Clinton neighborhood, this Clinton Street neighborhood, are they all in a BU district?

No.

They're not? They're in a MR district?

Yes, most of them are. It's kind of split halfway on the block, I would say, currently.

So why couldn't we...

If you go to the right, it's MR.

Okay, so is it possible to... in the special permit process to require them to require the house that's asking for a special permit to meet whatever zone is primarily the residential area that the other houses represent? If it's MR, then it has to be MR.

If it's SR, it has to be SR. Well, that would be the rezoning effect. I think we're looking at the special permit as a way of getting at that idea. That would be evidence.

Yeah, but you could use in the special permit criteria, you could say that the special permit should be cognizant of the surrounding neighborhood and what zone it is. So if it's an MR zone, meet the MR zone requirements. If it's an SR zone, meet the SR zone requirements. Give this as strict guidance to the land use committee.

Well, you could do that if the committee was receptive to it to say within the context of the neighborhood, including its zoning.

That's what I'm suggesting, that we think about that as well.

I mean, you can just add that as an additional term.

That would certainly have helped with the height problem.

The one thing that I will note is that, as Andrew just mentioned, a good portion of Newton is nonconforming. And so what's on the ground may be smaller than what's allowed. It may be larger. And so within the discretion of the special permit to get at the existing kind of massing context of the neighborhood, right? If it's, you know, making sure that very large buildings aren't built next to very small homes and using this zoning pathway, it may make more sense to base it off of the existing context of the neighborhood in terms of massing rather than in terms of zoning.

Well, that's a useful point. The potential zoning may be much bigger than the massing, right? But I think, Councillor Albright, I think maybe that's, you've heard Councillor Albright's suggestion, which I think is just basically trying to get at something similar to what you're saying. I don't, the fact that one zone is another, you know, that they're next to each other. But your point is important that the zone now may be much more spacious than the building that occupies it.

Okay.

All right. Any more comments on this part? If not, I'd like to go to the next part and back to you, Ms. Wolf.

I'll take that feedback and confer with law and current planning and we'll update the language accordingly. Thank you.

All right. So I just want to preface this section in that they're considerations. They're not intended to push you one way or the other, because I think one thing that was notable about our conversation last time was different counselors had different goals for their district, understandably. So what might matter more in one district, like height. Maybe contextual use is more important to another counselor. So we tried to factor that in to the things that we included. So just quickly, economic considerations. If you do rezone from commercial to residential, it can have an impact on the landowner, excuse me, because it may lower their economic opportunity. However, heavy caveat with that, we cannot speculate exact impact on market value. So there's no way to put a number to that. Understand commercial might have more value than residential in some cases. In other cases, it is reversed. The other thing is impact on the city. So it does eliminate the buy right commercial use, which decreases the potential commercial tax base. That being said, we're tax-based on the current use, not the zoning. So even if it's zoned business, but it's a two-family, for example, it would be zoned as, it would be, excuse me, assessed as residential. So just wanted to touch upon that.

So now- Excuse me, Senator Wright, do you have a question?

Oh, no, I was just going to say, you know, I believe most people, when they buy their house, they look at the neighborhood and say, I like this. zoning is. So I never did that. And now that I'm on ZAP, I would, but most people wouldn't. You look at the street, you see the street, you like the street, you think the houses will be all similar. So if your lot was zoned BU, you didn't, most people I don't think would have bought it for that. They bought it for the neighborhood and for the house that's on there. So for them, Are they losing, you know, money? I mean, they're going to sell it hopefully as a house. And one of the things we're trying to stop is overdevelopment because it's a BU lot. But the only people who might be looking at it is developers. I think nobody else is actually looking at what's the maximum I can do in that lot.

Carry on.

All right, so now we're going to test you on everything we went over. So I want to talk about the relation to variances. As we learned from the presentation, there is a new variance pathway. Disallowing a use does not mean there's no path for them to have that use. I'm not going to reiterate everything Attorney Lee already went over, but that we that we went over was it doesn't guarantee the variance is granted. So there is this new pathway. We want you to be aware of it, but we've yet to see how that plays out.

Again, can you just repeat that again?

Basically, it's the use variance. If somebody is zoned business and they say, I want to make it residential, And you say, well, wait a minute, we don't want that to happen. They say, well, I'll go to the ZBA. That's just what we're talking about. And they can say no.

Right. So I gave a couple examples to put this in perspective. So say a property is rezoned from BU1 to SR2. That means two-family detached is no longer allowed by right or special permit. that property can still apply for a variance to allow the two-family detached.

But a two-family detached is not allowed in BU1 anyways, unless by special permit. It's not allowed by right. Because you don't allow first floor residential.

Well, but there's a special permit pathway. So it is allowed. So this is saying if you're eliminating the by right and the special permit pathway, the variance gets introduced. That's it. That's the key. So similarly, if a property is currently zoned MR1, which does not allow multifamily by right or special permit, they can apply for a variance to have multifamily. Again, does not mean it's granted. So in relation to the nonconformities, as we've learned, there's now a new buy-right pathway for nonconforming properties. To reiterate, if a property has been forming due to lot size, frontage, lot coverage, or FAR, the nonconformity can be expanded buy-right as long as the proposed changes comply with height, setback, and story requirements. So the nonconformity changes do not apply to other dimensional requirements, and they don't apply to uses. So we looked at all of the zoning, the current zoning of the parcels we're looking at, as well as the proposed rezoning. And in some cases, rezoning may create more nonconformities, and more nonconformities can create more flexibility. So in other words, the rezoning would have the effect of having larger structures in some cases. We did look at all of the dimensional requirements. If a property is conforming after rezoning from BU1 to BU2, it increases the minimum lot area per unit in all cases. Sorry, from BU1 to the residential. Thank you. And then, so that would remain. It establishes a minimum frontage where there previously was none. It establishes a lot coverage maximum where there previously was none. And it decreases the FAR allowance. So in those cases, if your goal is massing, that is helpful. If the property is non-conforming, it exempts the property from lot area per unit. It exempts the property from frontage. It exempts the property from lot coverage. And it exempts the property from FAR allowance. So this is a perfect example how, in some cases, it might help you achieve what you're looking for. In other cases, it might actually work against you.

Well, it would be like we didn't even change that time. Yeah. So I'll let you sum lots.

Let me pause for a second.

You have a question about this? No, I just want to be the third person.

Spontaneous. Let's carry on for a bit and then we can come back.

All right. So we wanted to pull an example. To be clear, we cannot do this for every property we're looking at because we have to have the actual dimensions available to us. So

HAB-Juliette Boone, We just happened to have a recent special permit one of the properties under consideration, so we thought it just elaborate on that yeah I discussed this with them a great length about what they would require to get more granular data here. Really, there's no way to do it without hiring a surveyor because what they're using most of the time are measurements from GIS, which are far from accurate. So unless we want to spend hundreds of thousands on surveyors to actually measure property lines for us, it's impossible to get the data except from projects where we actually have solid figures. So I just want to elaborate on that.

Thank you.

We'll also take volunteers if you want to go ahead. Okay. So looking at 55 Colella Road with the proposed rezoning, which we'll touch upon later when we get to that neighborhood. So as a reminder, in the table that you see right here, the top section, those dimensional standards are not applicable if the property is nonconforming. Those are protected by the 40A changes. The bottom section of that table, are the dimensional requirements that do still apply. They're not protected.

Second letter, finish. OK. Go ahead.

So looking at its conforming status with the current dimensional requirements of its current zone, it's compliant with FAR. It's nonconforming with lot size. However, it was a pre-existing nonconformity. So they did not require a special permit for that particular aspect. It complies with lot area per unit. And in the case of its current district, there is no block coverage or frontage requirements. Front setback, height and stories, they received a special permit to build what they built, but they were conforming with your side and rear setback. Now, if you rezone it to the nearest residential district, this is what happens. FAR, lot size, lot area per unit, lot coverage, all become nonconforming. Frontage is conforming. Front setback and rear setback also are nonconforming, but side setback, height, and stories are conforming. As I said, the top ones are now protected under the 48 changes. The bottom ones still apply. So what that means is by right, they could come back right now, or sorry, if they were to be rezoned by right, they could come back to do an expansion of four and a half, a little over four feet on your side setback. So that's back here. They could go additional four feet. Height, they could go up nearly seven feet and add a half story. That is what they'd be able to do by right. Because what has happened now is your FAR, your lot size, your lot area per unit, and your lot coverage no longer apply because they became non-conforming. Take a breath. Bring on the questions. All right.

That's the right. And then we'll go around.

So let's say, though, if this FAR was conforming in the new one, they couldn't expand from the FAR standpoint. Correct. We would have to stay in there, what we did. So they can only go beyond what is non-conforming. Correct. Just any of those four.

Yeah, so like frontage, for example, they're conforming. So if they wanted to change the lot size for whatever reason and decrease it, they wouldn't be able to do that by right.

Just to reiterate, the thing that's so counterintuitive is that if you're out of scale, you can become even more out of scale. But if you're within scale, you got to play by the rules.

Yeah. That's a fair summary.

Yeah.

And we just wanted you to be able to visualize it because this is the same conversations we're having on the staff side. We're all figuring this out together. The other thing I'll point out is this section right here. They would be able to extend it out up to that front setback by right as well because they're not currently at it. So the special permit, they shrunk the footprint. They could come back by right if it was rezoned. to expand as you see there.

Okay. Now, Councillor Wright.

Just one more quick question. Is the facade ratio, how does that work with like the setbacks and the side setbacks and stuff like that?

So as far as we understand, facade ratio still applies.

So they couldn't go to the full side setbacks then?

Only if the facade were recessed.

basically it's a version of the setback yeah okay okay that yellow on the top there on the bottom picture on the top let's say that's the front and so you added that yellow now you're over the 60 percent facade ratio they couldn't do that that's what i'm hearing

Correct. I don't know if we actually have the facade ratio for this special permit. I believe it came through land use prior to that regulation being in place. It's a little hard to eyeball. I would guess that is more than 60%. But this is the example that we have. So we wanted to show as clearly as possible the increased

The storyline, rezoning may produce an irony of more development opportunity than less. And so that's part of the calculus we have to undertake if we want to do the rezoning.

All right. Anything else? Okay, so now we're going to go through the parcels again we structured a little differently this time to hopefully make it a little more straightforward, so I think it will be helpful for us is to hear out of these which you still want to consider and which you want to abandon. Okay, so starting with new and upper falls and Robin and Ward five. So the first slide is just showing you photos of the neighborhood. This is by the Boylston Street overpass. And the second slide is showing you the actual properties up for rezoning. This one I did a little extra research because there was some question as to why these two parcels were randomly zoned commercial. And it was from HAB-Masyn Moyer- To put the summary on it. It's from when Wilson Street was level with the ground. There was a gas station where that tiny houses now. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And the other property actually as far as I can tell, was never developed. So that is why in his own way it is because up until HAB-Masyn Moyer- The 1970s is when it was converted HAB-Masyn Moyer- Um, To talk about the impact. So as you can see in the corner, we did a chart that's just a snippet of the bigger one we showed at the last meeting because we just pulled out what's relevant to this particular area. Don't worry about the chart necessarily. That's there for reference. The table on the top is what we want you to focus on. So if you rezone, this is 926 to 928 Chestnut Street only because they would be rezoned differently. So this one's split out. HAB-Masyn Moyer- i'm single into family detached would be allowed by right and special permit the by right height allowance would increase and the special permit height allowance would decrease. HAB-Masyn Moyer- multifamily would no longer be a permitted use single family attached would be allowed by special permit and the special permit height allowance for decrease.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- That things on to what we can do that.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- i'm be you to the Mr one.

Amanda, in MR1, the single-family attached has the ability to waive any of the requirements, dimensional requirements.

Sorry, just identify Ms. Sanchez.

Sorry, I don't know why I'm, yeah, this is Jane Sanaswaso. I'm the chief zoning official. I don't know why my video won't turn on, so I apologize.

Okay.

What did you say? Can you repeat that for them? Yeah, sure. Um, the in our 1. Are in our 1 and 2 for single family attached all of the dimensional requirements may be waived by special permit. So if the maximum height shown in the table in the ordinance is 36 feet, the petitioner can ask for an increase to whatever is deemed appropriate by the committee.

So this is your words.

It's a plus minus here. It's a plus minus to me right now because I'm living in this other world now in terms of what they can come back and do. So I literally, at this moment, I can't make a decision. I'm just like, sorry.

I think that if I can make a suggestion, if you're not sure, I think the presumption is not to move it forward and hold it. It doesn't mean we can't reconsider at a later time. But if the purpose of all of this is to say, are there parcels that are important enough to push through the rezoning process, then we want to pick them out. But if they're not clear, my recommendation is that they not be pushed forward. Is that fair? And we're just relying on the special permit criteria if there's any interest in that. Yeah, Kathleen.

So the one on the right is in the BU, and I'm assuming it's meeting FAR.

We don't have a way of knowing for sure because we don't have a It was built in 1950.

So what you can do is go to assessor database and they have a house and the dimensions and all the nooks and everything.

That's not necessarily reflective of a recent survey. Essentially with assessor's data, there's always the caveat that it generally gets updated when there's new construction. That's usually the procedure. I don't know Newton's process specifically, but coming from other communities, usually when that building permit comes through, they update the numbers. And like this was from 1950. So we would never rely on that as an actual number to use for a calculation because it could be significantly inaccurate.

Well, so the FAR for you is like one and one and a half. and the FAR for which that basically would, you could get a rough estimate that just by looking at it, I would say is within the FAR for that house. I mean, you don't have to be that accurate. um and i mean you can go that i can work with you yeah no i can actually say look at it because the thing that i think most of us are worried about is the massing the massing is far so if it's meeting the far in the present zone then if you rezone it then it needs to meet the far

Right.

Right. So the question is, is it meaning the FAR or the present zone? And so we need to take a look at it. And yes, you don't have any drawings, but I feel comfortable going through the assessor's database and taking that to make that determination to move things on or not.

So we can certainly do that calculation, but what we're trying to emphasize is it wouldn't be an accurate measurement. There can be, sorry, I'm going to call on you a little bit. There's a question of whether we can use the assessor's database to make calculations. And I'm trying to give the caveat of, especially with the property that was last came through at 1950, the accuracy of the data. If it's close, it could, especially with the way our FAR regulations are, where it's down to the decimal. And the residential, I just would caution against using that.

So it has to be under the FAR in the rezoning, too. Okay.

I think that what I'm hearing from you is that, if I can summarize, that if the property is under FAR now and the dinkerman is not huge, leave it alone, basically, rather than put it into a non-conforming status and then they could go to any number they want within the lot lines, right? This is one of those cases where leaving it alone is more favorable in terms of the scale that could result than making the zone change, right? But you can't make that determination without having at least a sense that the current FAR is not exceeded. And you can't be certain of that Gareth J. Unless you do a survey, so if the numbers are you know clearly out of line, you know orders of magnitude, I think you'd be safe. Gareth J. But if this if it's close, then that argues for not making a call to go through a rezoning because you don't want to run into a problem that the survey would reveal it in fact you've made. it worse by actually even though you didn't intend it.

The other complication with just looking at the FAR is we cannot tell setbacks or anything like that. So even, for example, if it is not conforming to FAR as a result of the rezoning, the setbacks might be too restrictive as is where it's a

No point they can't go bigger anyway so yeah yeah so doesn't control the massing it's basically if it's one story and it's a lot coverage that controls the massing if it's two stories or more. It's the FAA. So because our setbacks are so generous or so little that, yeah, what's controlling the massing is generally for two stories or more is FAA, not the setbacks at all. Setbacks is just where you put it on the lot.

Well, but let's just say you've got stories. Well, questions. Councilor Albright. Councilor Albright, a question.

Yes. Do I remember what it is? Yes. So this is rezone BU2 to MR1. What does multifamily mean and why is that not allowed?

So in MR1, so in BU districts, they don't set dimensional regulations based on building type. All buildings in business districts follow the same dimensional regulations. Once you get into the different zones, the same thing can be called different things in our zoning. So multifamily in the case of our zoning ordinance refers to three or more units, whereas we then separated out single and two-family detached as well as single-family attached. One multifamily becomes a unallowed use, but single family attached is allowed. So you could have three units in more of the townhouse style essentially versus multifamily, which has more requirements around way of entrances and things like that.

So single family attached requires a 25 foot setback all around. I can't see that happening on this lot, but You know, I mean, so it's allowed use, but how do you make it happen? Our zoning is not right for that.

This is a good test case of the process. So again, I'm going to call on my Ward 5 colleague. Is this a parcel that we need to spend more time on?

At this point, I'm saying no. Okay. All right.

Okay. So that's going to be the, I hope we can cut through these to get to the ones that really are standouts because I think we want to, I'd like to have a successful vote through the council. That's the whole issue. But I'm going to make a clear case to our colleagues if we get there that these are the ones we want to do. Councillor Howell.

Being selfish, you're about to ask me that same question in one part of Ward 1. And I'm looking at two lots in here, which is great. Thank you. But I don't, are these all? Would these be all the lots in, for example, Newton Corner?

These were, so at the last meeting, there were some that were removed. The council told us whether or not certain ones wanted to be considered or not. And we only moved forward with ones that either people were unsure or they definitely wanted to still consider. That was the direction from the committee.

We had done a triage. What is from the anthem?

So to be clear, nonantum was separate because we spent a, that was prior to my time at new and that was what the June meeting was. So nonantum.

It's in there.

Nonantum.

Not in this situation. This is all the extras.

But we should be doing this for the nonantum ones too. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a fair point.

Thank you.

Yes. Yes.

Right. So I'm for, um,

I can't vote on Ward 1 if that's what you're about to ask me because it's not here.

No, we need to make sure. But let's just get these out of the way and then see what we do about 1 because that's where all this began.

All right. So same neighborhood, but this side of the street, we're looking at SR 2. Single family detached has a special permit and buy right pathway. It increases the buy right height allowance. It decreases your special permit height allowance. The other styles become disallowed uses So, This is like an incredibly small lot.

This is like a Zippo lot. I mean, it's like it's a slice of it's on the corner. It's so small, you know, I mean, I just would say it's a shed on this property. Well, again, it's like it's, you know, to me, it just doesn't make sense to shift it to SO2.

All right, then let's leave it alone.

I would just caution that overall, like if it's about developability as of now, that's 100% correct. If there is a time in the future when, say, like a developer buys up multiple lots in this area, you know, in terms of use, That's like down the line, I know, but just it's another consideration for you. I think you're dead on. This can't be developed. a theoretical situation where.

This could be a critical piece in the land assembly.

But that's SR2.

Yeah.

And this lot is 2,452 square feet.

So I'm going to recommend, unless there's a groundswell of opposition from Ward 5, that we go forward without this.

Correct.

All right. Let's carry on. I want to see how far we can go. OK.

Same word. We're now looking at Chestnut Street, south of Sullivan Avenue. Again, this is just neighborhood snapshots, not the buildings you're looking at rezoning. This is the one building that was still up for consideration. So it's 7 Hale Street. It would be a rezone from B1 to MR1. Single and two-family detached would be allowed by special permit and by right. It increases your by right height allowance. It does not substantially change the special permit height allowance. The reason we phrased it like that, and you'll see that in other slides, is because of the difference between the flat roof height limit and your peaked roof height limit. So what we're saying is it's marginal because, like, for example, I don't want to, we won't do this for all of them just for the sake of time, but An MR1 for single and two family detached, you get an increase in 12 feet if you have a sloped roof, six feet if you have a flat roof. That's what that's referring to. Multifamily would not be allowed. Single family attached would be allowed by special permit. And again, it does not substantially change the special permit height allowance.

Oh, no. Yeah.

Why would this not be, because they can, if we change it right now, so right now, they're. It's a minutia of change. Well, but they could tear it down and build up the whole lot. Correct. It's an 1830 house versus if we kept it or moved it to.

This is in the district, yes. Oh, okay, then I won't worry. Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, we're moving on to West Newton Ward 3. You're off the hook now. So we're looking at the corner of Auburndale Avenue and River Street. This is some neighborhood context and these are the parcels up for consideration. And so in this case, it would be a rezoning from BU1 to MR2. All of the residential uses would be allowed. The only buy right pathway would be for single and two-family detached. The height for single and two-family detached increases for the buy right pathway. It does not substantially change the special permit allowance. And the changes in height are minor for multifamily and single-family attached.

Yeah.

I'm seeing this differently from what the rest of you are doing. So generally, because of BU, I'm taking a look at the houses and just getting a rough idea of what it is. And I'll see two to six. probably half the lot, maybe 0.45 is the FAR on that one. And then BU1, I think the FAR is either 1 or 1.5. So the advancing on this lot, they could go twice as much, go twice as much than what's there.

I mean, this is a bigger, this can have a bigger impact because of its scale. It's not just a poster stamp, it is, and it's at a major intersection of

I mean, I feel like I'd like to change it, but I would like to sit down and do the math first.

So can we, again, we're not going to decide, I think, all of this tonight. We're going to have a package of all of these. But one of the... So go through two. Do you have any point on this?

I'd like to have a chance to.

Okay. So let's put this one in the category of possible, but not excluded. And then because I'm thinking ahead to the point, at some point we're going to have a kind of a final list of these are the ones we want to do. And I'd like to have at least that be a fairly clear list. And it'll be a smaller list than all of the categories that we look, I mean, all the candidates. I'm sorry, Councilor Rook. There are studies about academics and professors, teachers, and how they fall on people.

Because I so far have not figured it out. You're welcome to move over here.

I'll have to bring my own extension cord.

And I should have said this earlier, but this is a good place to talk about it. I don't love our choices here right because there's the assumption is is that the busy do you one is in there's something wrong with it because of the the by right or special permit ability to build. multifamily and that somehow. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Other than with the new zoning changes they did the Mr is more of what we want to do, and I think some of these lots like this one, or this package. HAB-Jacques Juilland, is a good opportunity for the kind of housing that we don't explicitly allow for outside of the bc ot, which is some modest multifamily housing that is not. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, No family detached and that this would be a good opportunity for slightly taller buildings that are allowed in the Mr maybe by a floor with some restriction on unit size to allow PB, Harmon Zuckerman, For you know more attainable this this strikes me as really pointing out a gaping hole in our zoning more than than a great opportunity to choose between bu1 and mr2 despite you know not irrespective of the complexity that changing mr2 creates because of the new zoning changes so I'd rather leave it alone until we have an option which creates a better multifamily option by right.

Okay.

So the idea here is to kind of match the zoning for the neighborhood. Adams Street is the perfect place for what you're proposing. This is all one and two families, except for the dry cleaners. So this is matching the use and these, except for one of them was actually a three-family, the rest of them are one or two families, is matching the use of the neighborhood. And this is what this whole practice or whatever was about. So, yes, I agree, you know, it's different and we'll leave, you know, Adams Street as the BU, but the Clinton Street, now this is a little bit more busy than Clinton Street, but it's all residential except for the one line across the street.

But I'm challenging the initial assumption that it has to match the exact... nature and the constraints that it surrounds. What I'm suggesting is that these BU districts are not MR1 or MR2, and then therefore they are good opportunities for some of that gentle density missing middle, which is close to the surrounding, but not necessarily similarly constrained. Down the block is the development that I think Simicoe did, which is five or six townhouses. that has turned out to be, you know, perfectly fine building in that neighborhood to me. And then it's similar gentle density here rather than pulling back the development opportunities. Let's better define the development opportunity so that it provides more of the kind of housing that we want.

Hang on, folks. I appreciate the comment, but I'm going to exercise the care's discretion to say the choice for us right now If at some point we change the zoning in these things to something else, then I don't disagree. There may be other options.

In the absence of that, then I would say we should just leave it as is.

Okay. But Councilor Wright has argued for... Yeah.

Especially that we just rezoned the village centers. We haven't seen it all. There's... You know, a couple blocks from there, there's an 18,000 square foot lot.

I'm going to stipulate that your arguments, you tell me what you want to do.

Oh, I want to take a quick look at it, but my inclination is to move it to MR. MR, okay.

Again, this is a committee collective decision, and we'll ultimately have a chance to revisit these, and we'll have a public hearing on anything we propose anyway. So let's just not misunderstand. And there may be other categories for future zoning uses of some sort. I don't mean to minimize the suggestion. I just say that right now, I'm trying to get us through the gate of some action on something for all the time and effort we've spent.

I can stop all night if you want me to.

I get my energy starting at 10.

Councilor Wright, just because you want to do more of a deep dive, we're happy to meet with you one-on-one about these, but I just also want to point out, again, MR2, as Jane pointed out, waivable. if they are doesn't apply to single family attached that's the other thing to consider so okay you guys have another conversation i just wanted to well point that out well pointed out you know all these comments are helpful but i want to get us i'm trying to get us out of here by 10 o'clock okay there's any way we can do to do that all right continuing in ward three we have the corner of washington street and watertown street this is the context it's right where it transitions to residential And this is the property that we're looking at, 953 Watertown Street.

Yeah, I think that should get moved.

Okay. I appreciate the efficiency. Okay.

All right.

Okay.

I think the photograph's really been helpful, by the way. I want to thank the department for taking the trouble to do that. Because the neighborhood context plus the actual parcel make a difference in making a decision.

Yeah, we were.

Credit Councilor Gordon for pointing that out.

Yeah, thank you also. It's really helpful.

That feedback is immensely helpful for us, so thank you as well. Okay, we're looking at Washington Street, still in Ward 3. This is some snapshots of the neighborhood. Obviously, Washington Street is more commercial, and then it transitions into residential, which we're seeing in those first two photos.

So this is a little bit like, we just recapped, we talked about Board one, we're set back from the street. How far back you go from the street? If this was on Washington Street, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But because it's set back one parcel, is it within the zone of protection? Or should it be changed? Or should it be stayed? So again, Councilor Wright and Councilor Malik.

So the 53, is it Cross Street? Yes. I think that would probably... should match the B zoning. Okay. And then the other one is what, 57? And also because it's across the street from the BU zoning, too. So it kind of matches up there.

No change for that one.

So 49 and 53 across the street, is that what you're referring to? Here, I can go back.

Oh, is it both of them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think so. But what do you think, Jillian?

I can't see it very well. Let me make sure. I can't try to find it on the... Almost as close.

yeah one of them they're like lines drawn to set a parcel yeah oh yeah joe's property owns 49 so the top so 30 53 is oh the funny one all the funny steps and 49 is one instrument okay so um

I guess 53 makes more sense to be stay business and 49 makes more sense to be residential. Is that what you're thinking?

49 is supposed to get $20 anyways.

Oh, is that the one that's for the parking lot? For the parking lot, you're right. Yeah, so it's sort of irrelevant.

Yeah, it's moved to whatever results. My sense is that those

Those two are not going to rise to the level of rezoning?

Yeah.

OK. And then what about the other one?

The corner. Oh, down there. The 57 to 58. 57. Parsons. Parsons.

Parsons.

Yeah. That one, I'll get back to you on that one. OK. Because it's across from residential. It's next to residential.

It has a greater candidate to me too, but again, you guys start it out. Yeah.

All right. Okay. Now we're moving on to Auburndale, Ward 4, between Commonwealth Avenue and Auburn Street. Do we want to hold on this one since the council is here? Is Randy here?

Is Randy Bloxville on the call? No, he's no longer.

Okay. Okay, so we can keep that on, and then...

I would suggest, if Councilor Wright, you're willing to reach out to him, if there's a conversation, he can look at these, or your other board, or our other board, you know, Cyrus is not here. He may have a point of view, because he's a member of the committee.

Oh, it's Cyrus. This one was a really odd lot. I'm inclined to keep it as such, but because it's behind everything. I think the owner owns some of the commercial lots too.

So why don't we say the presumption of these will not be changed unless, but is it possible, I don't want to put a burden on you, but if you could just send an email to the board for Councilors.

Director, but I think just for open meeting law, since it's a DACA item, we would need to hear it in a meeting for us to act upon it. We couldn't remove it necessarily.

I am not that intimate with open meeting law that I could weigh in on that.

That's a fair point. I guess that you can have a conversation with one person, but not, well, that's not a majority of the committee meetings. i can reach out and bcc them so they can't respond to each other or confer but they can be directed to the information in hand but the presumption is it's not going to be unless they speak soon and say there's some compelling reason that it ought to be reasonable yeah i believe the discussion last time was uncertain and again if there's not a strong reason to go forward then rather not PB, Peter Vitale, Go to a debate that we don't need to have it.

It's the only one person. This is just the one.

Yeah.

PB, Peter Vitale, Okay, so moving on towards six and eight, which is Newton center and the four corners and new and Highlands. So we're going to look at the four corners first. PB, Peter Vitale, This is the neighborhood context. It's commercial and then PB, Peter Vitale, I'm sorry, what street is that Brent would have really is the cut off where it becomes residential and The discussion was to consider 54, 58 to 60 Brentwood Ave, and 5 to 7, and 9 to 11 Carthay Circle for rezoning. In this case, it would be BU2 to SR2. Single family detached would be the only allowed use by right and special permit. It increases the by right height allowance. It decreases the special permit height allowance. Oh, I'm sorry. I think we, oh, Carthay Circle will be a different zone. So that'll be the next slide. So we're just looking at what happened for this one.

So, Dr. Gordon?

Well, I know things have changed, but previously when we discussed this, I would have changed this to being SR2.

Yeah, but I mean, this one looks more presidential to me too, but.

The street is, sorry. there's one business that's cornered down.

This looks a little like Clinton Street in capital to me, for the potential.

So it's the presumption.

Yeah, that's the second . So you want to keep this one?

Keep it. Well, I could change it.

Yeah, change it. No, what I mean, keep it in the game.

Yes.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Let me be precise. The recommendation would be to change the zoning. OK.

I disagree. But if the threshold is keep it in the game, somebody's saying, I mean, this is a perfect example. It's on the edge of a commercial district. There's very little residential that would be affected. It backs up to $2. So

is very low. Across the street is all residential and all the way down the other side of the street is all residential.

I pulled up the use map. It's the light yellow is single family. The darker yellow is multifamily. The red is commercial.

Mostly residential there. It's not commercial.

Those two blocks. Yes. Across the street. Not the entire Carthay Circle. Correct.

I'm not talking about Carthay Circle. I'm talking about Brentwood.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Oh, great.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- They're different reasonings.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- On the Redwood side my the same thing I said earlier, which is, you know, it, but it does it takes the in this one of the problems with this whole exercises, it takes the notion of a transition to just going straight to the limitations of the Mr. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So I wouldn't be. I'm not in favor really have any of these, but this one doesn't particularly strike me as a good exception.

Anyway, right now, the choice is do we change it to the SR zone? I hear that many of these board of state councilors said yes. Right? OK. So let's carry on. Let's do that.

I agree. And you're not committing at this point.

It's just a matter of not going to the next . OK. I can count, too. No.

Now we're looking at Carthay Circle, which would be BU2 to MR1. So in this case, single family and two family detached would have a buy right and special permit pathway. It would increase the buy right height allowance, decrease the special permit height allowance. Multifamily would not be allowed. Single family attached would be by special permit, and it would decrease that special permit height allowance.

Can I just ask, what is there now? What is it, a single family house now?

Oh, yeah. So these were relatively recently redeveloped, I think in the last 15 years at most, maybe less than, I forget off the top of my head. But those are the two houses on the bottom.

So are they single family or two family or what are they?

Two family.

Two family.

Worth the trouble? 6?

I would change it.

Okay. I'm sure. I'm going to stipulate that I suspect Councilor Rose would not. But for purposes of the committee discussion, the nature of the neighborhood is residential. That's what moves me somewhat in that direction.

That whole circle is residential, and it's sort of on a different height from the commercial that's on the other side.

That's where Kayla is.

Yeah, but it's residential multifamily.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I would go to. Yeah.

It would go to what? BU? No. Oh, it would go to MR1. MR1. Yes.

It's on BU.

It would be single family. That's the difference.

Yeah. I mean, it's a nice little short little street. And they're all similar somewhat similar houses.

So yeah, I think it Was the use that this is the map for the BCOD and then they were left as residential. So the ones up there that you're looking at Brent when they were MRT

It just makes it hard because when we started this discussion, we were talking about keeping houses that are in residential areas seeming residential. Now we're introducing Sean's point, which is that he would like those to maybe be triple-deckers or bigger houses. But I think from my point of view, these houses, if all of a sudden you put commercial use there, it would be very strange for that little circle. So I need to speak to that.

I think for the moment, we can stipulate that I hope that for the moment, the choice is do we leave it the way it is or do we change it? We don't have another zoning category. We're not likely to have one in the period of time that we had. That doesn't mean that it can't be new change and something to be done in the future. But for purposes of this item, I would like to just cling to the house that we have and see where we go. So I think we leave this, this one is a candidate for change.

Yeah. Okay.

But the point is that this should not stay business. So in your list of properties to make the shift, at least to go to public hearing, that would be one. Okay. All right. Next one. Oh, excuse me, council. Do you have a different opinion on this?

Sorry. Question. Councillor Gess just pointed out that the Brentwood lots are part of VCOD. No, it was. We didn't put this in. This was proposed. Proposed, I'm sorry.

Yes.

I'm sorry for wasting your time.

The point here is that it checked if it was going to be MRT residential.

But also the lot on the street, though, too, which we're not doing on Walnut Street. And we're not changing that. So it's going to be MRT also.

The zoning maps we're showing do show all the possible layers. So if it isn't a VCOD, we'll see that. It's all becoming clear.

My quick point is that one of the factors that we discussed earlier was the risk of this being developed under the BU and given the recent development, the recent bill changes, the likelihood that this is going to be exploited. Again, we're not really worried about commercial. We're worried about the broader opportunities for residential under BU. So I don't think anybody's concerned that that's going to turn into a Wawa. So the concern is that it's going to be a larger.

It's going to be Clinton Street.

So this one just doesn't strike me as a risk of that happening and therefore do as little damage.

I would change it. I think there's an obligation to protect the residents who live there from something happening that we know can happen.

Anyway, none of these are imminent in any case. And some have higher risk than others. But anyway, for purposes of going forward, the argument is legitimate to be made. But I think for our purposes, at least to give you guidance.

Keep it on the table. Yeah. OK. I think that might be a simpler way to think about it. Are we keeping it on the table or are we abandoning it?

That might be a better way to frame this. What's on the table? What's under the table? There's no one under the table.

Board 8, Oak Hill Park. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And so, just a reminder, this is that one block in the middle of a subdivision i'm with there's a large i'm not sure if it's a partner condos off the top my head but there's also some commercial uses connected and that's that's why showing up as an excuse. We did add 55 Colella Road in this, and we're also looking at 18 Hanson, 10 to 12 Hanson, and 633 Sawmill Brook Parkway, so the four parcels along there. In this case, it would be a rezoning from BU1 to SR3. Single family detached would be the only allowed use by right and special permit. It would increase the buy right height allowance. It would not substantially change the special permit height allowance. And we, this example we demonstrated early on of potentially what they can do buy right.

Keep it on the table. Yes.

Councilor Kalis, board eight.

He said twice. Yes.

I'm sorry. I just didn't hear what he had to say.

Yes. Okay.

So these would still go forward. Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Now we're going to Newton Corner and Ward 1. So we are, look, this is the neighborhood context. So kind of like what we saw in the other part of Washington Street where it's transitioning into residential. These are the two properties, 21 to 23 Peabody Street and 25 to 27 Peabody Street. And sorry. So this would be a rezoning from BU1 to MR2. All of those residential uses would be allowed in some capacity, either by right or special permit. The only substantial change is it slightly increases the by right height allowance of single family and two family detached. The other changes are minimal.

I'm just, just because I need to process everything else we heard tonight. I want to keep them, but I'm inclined to leave them as is because it fit the context of this neighborhood. Like I think denser housing here makes sense. Okay. So keep them on the table, but I'm like, I want to do a little more homework. Yeah.

If you decide that on reflection, like Councilor Wright, you know, you're doing your homework on something specific in your mind, then that's...

It might be one where FAR might be, it might be pushed into a nonconformity status.

Yeah. It might be one of your unintended consequence situations. But for the moment, it's still there. Okay.

Can I go back?

No, you said yes three times.