Although my vision’s better, it’s still not good enough to read those names. Oh Oh Thank you. Uh, good evening, everyone. Um, I’m calling the December 3rd, 2024 planning board meeting to order it’s 7:02 p.m. and this meeting is being recorded and uh will be available on um. Zoom at probably sometime later this

evening. So we have quite a, um, A busy evening. There are a number of items on our agenda, uh, but the first thing we do is take roll, so, uh, planning board members, when I call your name, please indicate that you’re present. Jonathan Poor Jonathan Wheaton Wheaton present Amquist Amil Dahlquist present, Beth. Here. Darcy Dale.

Darcy Dale present. Uh, Matt Hamill, I believe he’s on Zoom. Yes. Matt Hamill present. Uh, Jeff Austin, Jeff Austin present and Marie Crouch present and I note for the record that Pat Norton advised me that he was not able to attend this evening. Uh, so the first thing on our agenda is a

review and vote on minutes from July 16, 2024, and I can advise planning board members that I reviewed these minutes and corrected some typographical errors and Darcy also reviewed the minutes and found some very uh relatively minor stylistic changes, so I did forward the corrected minutes to planning board members, so if there are any additional corrections,

please, um, advise me at this time, otherwise, I, I can entertain emotion to approve the minutes from July 16th, 2024. So moved 2. Great, uh, so when I call your name, please indicate whether you Jonathan Poor Jonathan Poor Bill Bill Wheaton, Bill Wheaton Amil Dahlquist. Amil Dahlquist.

Beth, Darcy Dale. Darcy Dale, I crouch eye. Uh, the second item on our agenda is um a site plan review, uh, that, uh, an application that has been filed by the Hamilton Fire Department, and Mark, would you please read, um, for the record, the notice of public hearing that was, um, I believe, uh, appropriately,

um, Noticed out Or just Uh, Give me 1 2nd. Uh, I have it in front of me, so if you’re having difficulty finding it, I can do it. OK. Um, the Hamilton Planning Board will hold a site plan review on December 3rd, 2024 at 7 p.m. at the Hamilton

Wenham Library 14 Union Street, main meeting room in accordance with mass general law Chapter 48 Section 10, and the Hamilton zoning bylaw relative to the Hamilton Fire Department model T storage building project. The applicant. the Hamilton Fire Department and the application is to construct a 308 square foot display structure for model for a Model T fire

apparatus at 265 Bay Road, Hamilton in front of the public safety building zoning district R1A MAP 56, lot 32, a copy of the complete application is available for review at the building department during the regular hours of operation of the town of town hall at 299. Bay Road or contacted uh the um Hamilton planning department.

So with that um business out of the way. Uh, I have Uh, several comments about this application. The first comment I will make is that the concept of having um A display building for this um fire apparatus is an excellent one. It’s, it’s, it’s something that the town can be

proud of. With that said, I note that. Several things. One, The Section of the bylaw pertaining to site plan review. It is not a model of clarity and in fact it has uh some serious scrivener’s errors in it. And so It’s unclear to me whether the fire department attempted to do an abbreviated

site plan review or just a full site plan review. The provisions relating to abbreviate site plan review would not apply to this application. A reading of Section 10.6.3 is such that it only applies to proposed additions or alterations to existing buildings, not the construction of a new building.

The other Legal deficiency, if you will, that I, I noted with respect to this application is that. Unfortunately, it was followed by the fire department when in fact it should have been filed by the town of Hamilton. The town of Hamilton owns the land upon which the public safety building is built

and it also owns. The public safety building. So the correct applicant would be the town of Hamilton. Now, the town of Hamilton, um, the selector could vote. To authorize the fire department to pursue this on the town’s behalf, but that should be corrected through a vote, um, by the select board

at its next meeting. Uh, and the only other comment I would make is that probably as at least everyone in the planning board knows and I hope a lot of you know is that at the annual town meeting, the town did authorize the expenditure of a of funds for a form-based code that includes Bay Road and so

the location of the uh proposed display structure is. Implicated in a way with that form-based code. So at this juncture, uh, I think that that I need to ascertain whether or not um the fire department is willing to go and uh seek authority from the select board to pursue this on the town’s

behalf, and I also need to know whether there has been full compliance with um all the provisions, all the content requirements that are set forth in 10 section 10.6.9 of the law and in particular I don’t believe we have um a list of um The, well, the location and owners’ names of all decent

properties. In other words, there has never been, um, a list of abutters filed with this application. Now when this application was filed, Patrick Refer was the planning director and so this application really uh fell into a little bit of a gap period so that our new planning director, Mark Connors

received it from Patrick, but I don’t think he had the opportunity to go through. The application and make sure it complied with all, um, applicable provisions of the bylaw. And again, I, I, it’s not really my place to apologize for section 10.6 of this bylaw, but because the planning board, the existing planning board had no, um,

input into its drafting. It’s been on the books for some time, but in reviewing it for tonight’s hearing, I did know that there are some um pretty egregious errors. In the bylaw, so I don’t know who’s here to speak on behalf of the applicant and how you’d like to respond to my comments. Uh, we

are more than willing to um give you a continuance, uh, to our next, um, Our next meeting so that these uh, uh, deficiencies that are brought out can be corrected. Um, so I’m Ray Burnett. I’m actually the fire chief, um, Tom Hamilton, um, I’m just feel a little blindsided by this

information coming to us at this point in time. I, I, the way it works is that this application goes to the planning director and as I said, it, it was filed right around the time that Patrick was retiring and Mark was taking over, but the planning board itself has not had an opportunity to review this.

application prior to this evening, so we received this package of information, uh, in advance of this meeting. We have not had it for any length of time. I understand, um, I guess we’d have to ask for a continuance. What do you, what do you wanna? Well. I mean, sorry. I mean, I, I, Brian

Stein from Van Stein Architects, um, I did coordinate with Patrick mostly on this and then Mark at the very end, um, after Patrick left. And it is a full site plan review. I, you know, Patrick and I talked about that. The form is for full site plan review that was, you know, on

the town of Hamilton website and the Patrick O’Ka Patrick, um, okayed the entire application. He, I think said, you have more than enough here for a site plan review review, um, we updated the plan or the plan set with the landscape drawings as well that were, were not in the original

package, so I get to mark out those uh a week or a week and a half ago, um, I don’t know when you received it. But the application was in. Oh geez, I can’t remember when we filed it, but it was, it was in the end of the due date. Yeah. Um, so

it was in before the, um, like you said, the due date before this meeting, and there was, there wasn’t a butter’s list that was filed. Butter’s list that we, we actually did, um posted it, put it in the, um, got sent letters, uh, the notice was filed, uh, in the paper. We don’t have, I don’t

have that in my packet. Yeah, it was all done. Who’s got it? I mean, I, I don’t, I’m not disputing that, but I don’t have it in the pack that was given to me. So I, I still think that that there is an issue with respect to the

proper applicant here. And so I I truly, I represent the town as being the fire chief, the, the building, public safety building is the fire department. right? The purview, I, I’m the fire chief. I, I have the purview over the building being the fire chief, it’s a mass general law. Um-hum. OK? I’m, I’m representing the town, um,

the town manager, um, is well aware of what has been transpiring throughout this process. Everybody has seen what’s gone through, through this process through the CPC, um, the meeting. They all knew this was coming for. To planning board, um, I don’t see a problem with going starting the site plan review and I believe, um, Joe Diallowitz,

the town manager, is um in contact with uh KP Law was one of your regards, um, uh, stating that I shouldn’t have been the applicant, um. Uh, from what you’re interpretation is, and he feels that that’s not the case and he is um he’s reached out to KPR, um, I think as of today, um, to concur with,

with them, um. With a different point of view. Right, but I understand what you’re saying, but the fire department is not the property owner and most, I mean all site plan reviews are generally filed by the law. I have purview over the fire station, the property around the fire station. That’s not

ownership of its ownership, but um, It’s not like I was doing something deceiving. No, no, no, no, I started this meeting by saying that the idea, the concept of having this display structure with this uh fire engine is a wonderful idea. Thank you. I, I appreciate your, your comments and, and I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I, I think it’s a worthwhile, um, project, um, that the townspeople are going to cherish for for years to come, um, but Like I said An email or phone call today instead of coming here and finding. Well, sir, I apologize. We’re an all volunteer board. We get a package of information several

days before a meeting and we’re not necessarily aware of of all the contents until we’re actually, it’s actually distributed to us, so patrographic can say one thing and, and give you information, but it’s actually the planning board that has to review it and and make a decision. He, he can’t, he can speak for us in.

In some respects, but he’s not the person who votes on your application. It’s the 7 members of the planning board who do that. With all due respect, this this project was approved once before, uh, through similar, um, avenues the prior fire chief Phil Stevens had brought it, um, to the zoning

board, did the same process through, uh, the, uh, CPC he received funds, but, uh, for reasons beyond his control, it never moved forward and um that’s why I’m here today. I I I took the, um, this this goal on to finish what he had left.

where he had left off. And so this is already and I know it needs to be approved again, but it had already gone, it went through the same avenues, um, but the zoning board at that at that time, um, he, he petitioned the zoning board. It wasn’t the town that petitioned the zoning board. This has

already been done once before in a very similar fashion, um, so I, I’m just a little perplexed by um some of the comments, that’s all and and don’t, don’t take that the wrong way, please. Well, and similarly, I don’t want you to feel that we’re being disrespectful of your efforts

here. Um-hum. Uh, I’m just trying to, I, I put a lot of my own, um, time and effort and this is going to take, uh, you know, a lot of time and effort um to. To undertake to get this done, um, and this is for the benefit of the future of the

town. I, I think that um this piece of fire apparatus needs needs to be uh displayed. People need to see it. I think it’s a worthwhile venture. I don’t think anybody here on this planning board disagrees. Uh, Madam, Madam responsibility for this. I apologize. Obviously there was a little bit of miscommunication in

terms of transition, but um, We can certainly check on kind of legal questions. uh, there’s a meeting in 2 weeks, so, um. Hopefully we can have you back then. I don’t think necessarily the select board has to represent the application worst case they might have to sign an affidavit. to get it.

Appointing you is there representative, um. But we can sort that out in, um, postpone for two weeks if you’d like. We could start the conversation, uh, Marnie, too take this up again, I, I, I mean, can you make sure that um the We contents, um. Uh, uh, site plan review that are set forth in

10.6.9 are all in our package so that we have that information in front of us so that we’re not quite short here. Did you have something about? OK. So If it, if it’s any consolation, I, I read this, uh, section of the bylaw, uh, very carefully before I came here

today, and I found probably at least 10 instances where there are problems. So it, it’s not a model of clarity and hopefully, uh, to the extent they’re scrivener’s errors in here, we can clean it up. That’s one of the errors in the bylaw or errors with uh errors within the bylaw. So, it wasn’t our

error. That’s just what I’m trying to define, I didn’t know whether or not you had done an abbreviated site plan review or a full site plan review. So you have now informed us that you have done the full. I plan review, not the abbreviated site plan review. Um. So that, that clears that up and we can

look then um through the bylaw and make sure that there is full compliance with, with all the provisions. So we’re, we’re more than happy to, to work with you here and I, and I. I don’t believe that construction is imminent? Uh, no, but, um, we’re kind of chomping at the bit because, you know, we only

have so much time with the um the, the money is from uh the CPC, everything takes time, but I mean, certainly at risk of losing, um, we can postpone this. I mean, we do have some time, but you know, the process is, it’s daunting. Yeah, so.

But So I guess we We, uh, for next week so we can we make a motion to continue the hearing? Is that what I’d like to make a motion to continue the hearing until the next meeting. December 17th, I believe December 17. At 7 p.m. So, uh, um, I appreciate your flexibility I call your name,

please indicate whether you consent to the uh continuance, um, Jonathan Poor. Before we call a vote, could I just, um, could we have a brief discussion on the motion? Sure. Um, is there value in just, um, Hearing the the presentation and having the, the board comment on it right now so we don’t waste more time.

Yeah. It’s good for the it’s a question. for the board. I’m in agreement. I think so. Is the board in favor of hearing the I have one question to ask. So we wouldn’t make a formal vote until 2 weeks hence when the petition comes in with all the

T’s crossed and the I’s dotted, and then we’ll be in a position to vote, but I’d certainly support hearing a presentation this evening, so it doesn’t have to. That doesn’t have to wait. Great. OK, but we should ask that question. All right, um, so do we have to refile if the, if the town has to um give

us an affidavit giving me. Yes, that’s fine. I mean, just so that you have to refile or no, no, you don’t have to refile the whole thing, just provide the authority and really this is not for today. It’s for 50 years from now or or 60 years

from now when none of us are here and so someone looking at the, maybe at that point the public safety building will be antiquated and they’ll be building a new one and someone’s trying to sort through what happened here and the property owner is the town of Hamilton, not the fire

department. But if the property owner authorizes you to be their agent, um, no problem. OK. But you can uh proceed with your presentation. That’s the uh, the will of the board. Before this all happens, um, thanks you for having us here tonight, uh, we’ve already spoke a bunch, but, um, we want

to make sure our homes are protected in the event of fire, OK? Don’t worry. We’ll still protect you, I promise you that. Um, well, this building, um it’s meant to house and display, uh, the Model T building, uh, for the town of Hamilton, um, it was the first motorized fire apparatus that the town had, um,

more importantly, structural will protect the vehicle from elements, uh. And it will allow the people, um, to view this uh er piece of history for many years to come. Um, the original building was, uh, that, that housed in 1916, uh, American Flan Model T, um, was actually uh torn down just before the,

uh, public safety building, uh, was erected and it basically it ended up, it would have my office ended up where the Model T building was originally, um, basically right in front of the bays in the corner of it was in my office, um, At the time we were promised by the town officials that a new structure

would be erected in its place, but that never happened, obviously. This was due to an unforeseen, uh, increase in costs for the public safety building we had Katrina and, um, all the lumber and whatnot increased in price dramatically, so the money that they put aside for the building and to

re-erect uh this uh Model T building, uh, was. knock on, um, in 2007, uh, Phil Stevens, the prior fire chief at the time applied for CPC funds, as I said before, and it was awarding awarded the amount for the building. Uh, the building was approved by the zoning Board of Appeals, but

unfortunately, the building project, uh, did not move on for various reasons. Um At the annual FY 25 in a meeting. We were unanimously approved, uh, to use CP CPC or CPA funds for this building project and obviously that’s why we’re here tonight, um, and obviously you’ve met Brian Stein.

Brian is going to take over the rest of the presentation, and we’ll move forward from here. Do you guys have any other questions or in the last part of my Ray, I have a question. I remember, I remember that original little building. And uh we’re housed that antique fire truck and, um, will it look similar? Will it

be very similar it’s gonna look, uh, more towards the, uh, the era of uh the that time and you guys you can see it here, it, it’s not, um, anywhere, I wouldn’t say it’s not like that building, but it, it’s close, but the other building was bricked to, um, to kind of complement the, the old brick

fire station that we had at the time, so it was kind of it was done more in that taste. Um, and, and that’s style, uh like the 60s era, um, and it was actually built by the fire association, uh, with no cost to the town at that time it was

donated. Um, there was a person who since passed. He was, uh, actually, um, the, uh, DPW foreman, um, uh, *** Poole, he did a lot of the masonry work and we’re actually thinking about calling the *** Poole Memorial, um, Model T building, uh, in his honor, um, so I think it would be nice to have

that back. I remember. Excuse me. It would be nice to have it back. I remember it, I think it’s it’s gonna be a focal point for the, for the town. Like I said, you know, looking, looking at the bill, you know, the building and the, and the public safety and the, the kids

can come up and, uh, there’s gonna have plenty of windows to go around and people can view. It’s kind of, uh, it’s going to be handicapped accessible. So, uh, it’s going to have the right grades, so people in wheelchairs can go all the way around the building and, and,

and view the, the, uh, nice piece of apparatus, um, it actually. What I meant when in my little presentation, uh, my statement was, uh, the, the fire apparatus actually after the, the, uh, public safety building was built, uh, it ended up getting pushed back in the corner of the fire station

and kids would jump all over it and it came in disrepair and and one of our firefighters uh actually took it upon himself. Um, put his own money into it and has rebuilt it to pristine condition it’s actually he’s actually sent the engine out to be rebuilt, transmission, rear end and um and it’s almost

completely back together and and I I think it’s uh. It, it, it, it’s a good piece of history that we need to take on for the next 100 years and and keep it. Thank you. Uh, thanks. You stole a little bit of my thunder there in terms of, uh,

you know, the building and the access and so forth, but uh we can kind of, you know, start a little bit with kind of where the inspiration came from and it was a little bit from that original building, obviously, you know, we saw pictures of the, you know, restored fire, fire truck, and it’s beautiful.

It it needs a place to to be displayed, to be prominent, and to be, this is gonna be a um a conditioned, you know, heated building to actually help preserve, to help preserve the, um, the fire truck. Um, you know, when we were talking to Ray about it a while back, you know, we were, we were talking

about where it should be, and, you know, given, you know, looking at, you know, downtown Manchester, they’ve got theirs prominently displayed right downtown and beautiful building right next to their town hall, um, you know, you see one in Essex that’s near a park, you know, it’s pretty prominent, um,

so we kind of wanted the same thing for this building where, you know, pedestrians and so forth that are at, you know, Patton Park or the community house or wherever walking downtown, it’s there. You can see it. You can go to it, you can walk up to it. You can look right in and see the apparatus

fire truck, um, we also took some inspiration from the old firehouse on Willow Street, um, so the, the front doors there, the red doors that have glass in them were kind of reminiscent of what was on that building many years ago, um, and then just the scale and the size of it was similar to what

was approved, you know, uh, you know,,,,, 1520 years ago, um, but we wanted to be a little bit more of a barn, um. Given we’re in Hamilton, right? We didn’t want just, you know, one of the previous approvals was for a shed, basically, like a

Reed’s Ferry shed. It was 14 by 22 and I was like, look, we, we need something better than that in our town to display this fire truck. So that’s kind of that was the impetus for this was to come up with a nice building that’s kind of a barn,

um, reminiscent of the building on Willow Street, the um, the sign up on the top, um, is from that building on Willow Street, um, for this fire truck. So there’s a lot of, a lot of History and not only kind of the look of the building, the doors, the, the truck itself, and then the signage, um, which

is kind of how we came up with the overall design, um, and as you know, Ray said, Um, you know, there’s a walkway, um, you know, almost like a patio area around it that people can gather if need be. There’s a, uh, pedestrian access off of

the parking lot next to the COA building. Um, the rest of it, you know, we didn’t want to have all these pathways coming off the driveway, coming off Bay Road. So, you know, people can walk through the grass as well, um, you know, to get up

to the building. But it’s um It has a nice scale to it. It it it’s not a big building, but it’s, you know, it’s big enough to house the apparatus, um, those are just some photometrics for the lights, um, yeah, the chemical one sign, you know, we’ll be on the front there, um, so yeah, it’s just

we, we think it fits pretty well downtown. We wanted something that would kind of catch your eye, you know, as you were walking, you know, walking down Bay Road, driving down Bay Road, um, you know, obviously, you know, one of the reasons for site plan review is lighting and. Um, so lighting,

it was kind of a big piece here to get the right type of lights, you know, kind of the barn lights that we have here, but also to be able to control it, which I’m sure we’ll talk about at some point with you, um, about how this is lit, how much

this is lit, when it’s lit, um, but, you know, the plan would be, you know, the fire station will have full control over the lights and they can be on timers and we can set it for whatever you guys want in terms of, you know, if they go out or

they dim at whatever time, you know, we’ll we’ll talk about that, but Um, we need to make sure that there’s, you know, enough light around the building for access at night and for safety, um, you know, lights over each door. There’s boulder lights around the, the pathway, um, the kind of, you

know, indicate the edge of that path, the edge of the walkway. Um, you know, all of them, you know, we got, we have the photometric study as well. It’s not, it’s not, they’re not all that bright, but there’s, you know, bright enough to, you know, provide for safety and to, you know, my vision anyway is

to have the building lit just a low level of light at night, you know, inside and out, um, again for safety, but just also again just even even driving through town at night, I want this to be like a little maybe he cans I guess the right word,

um. You know, that, you know, draws your eye to it and you know, we I think we can all agree the public safety building isn’t the most attractive building in town, um, but this will be kind of in the foreground of that and, you know, take a little bit of the curse off that building in my

opinion. Um, so, um, Yeah, it’s, uh, It’s gonna be pretty simple inside, um, might have a couple of beams in the ceiling and some lights dropping down some, you know, pendant lights, uh, but it’s really just the fire truck. There’s gonna be some other, um, memorabilia in there.

There’s gonna be an old, the old firefighter’s desk will be in the back, so it won’t be just the truck. It’ll be this little almost like little museum piece, if you will, with some, you know, with some memorabilia around so some signage and other things. Um, so that’s uh. That’s pretty

much it. Um, I mean, on the sighting, it is sighted in the middle of those, the 4 trees that are there now and that uh. In that grassy area in front of the fire station, um, again, like I talked about this, there’ll be some uh minor plantings that Hugh Collins is, you know, has donated his time

to come up with, uh, what you see on the landscape plan, they provided a plant list, so pretty, pretty simple, but, you know, we’ll dress it up a little bit. It dresses up the entry off the parking lot, um, dresses up the corner of the, of the walkway, so, um, it’ll be a nice, it’s, it’ll sit in

there very nice and, uh, you know, be a great little piece for the town. Good. Happy to answer any questions you have. Did any board members have any comments? I just want to take a minute to thank all of you. Because we’re very grateful or I’m very grateful. I think I

speak for everybody on the board, um, that we’re just really grateful for the service that you bring in the sacrifice for the town, so, um, I just wanted to make sure that that was highlighted in our conversation. Sorry for the confusion tonight, but, um, we don’t want to miss, um, the

importance of what you bring to the town. Yeah, and I just want to echo that. Thank you. I, I know. I have a feeling I know what it’s like to get up at 3 in the morning and I have a son who’s on the department, so we had to go through that a little

while, um, he’s still on it, but, um. Yeah, I think this is a great thing. So I have a, I have a couple of questions. Um. First of all, uh, I’m really, uh, enthusiastically supportive of uh of the restoration and the display of the vehicle. I’m a. Uh collector and a restorer of vehicles myself and a big

fan of trucks. I have an award winning truck myself that I. Having show and uh know the history, you know, of the town is wrapped up in this as well. So, um, it sounds as though the truck is an operable vehicle, it’s not just mothballed, um.

And so what I would assume is that you have a plan for keeping it exercised, you know, what, um, if it’s not mothballed, then it needs to be started once in a while, moved around, um. Uh, so, and I see that there’s sort of an apron of uh terrorists out in front of the garage doors, and I

would assume if it’s operable, it would also leave the premises once in a while for events, shows, parades, whatever, um, I would assume. And so I guess a question would be then when it leaves, it has to exit between the trees and across the lawn and onto one of the, the driveways, the fire department driveway or the

council on aging driveway. Um, OK. So, and then I understand the building’s conditioned, so it has its own services coming into an electric and whatever the heat is. Um. So, and it sounds as though the public isn’t invited into the building. They just stay on the outside of the building, look through

the windows. Uh, so, I guess, uh. The other thing that Marnie had mentioned was that um the form-based code process is sort of coming through town and is coming up Bay Road, uh, and includes the civic area of the of the town, and so what was interesting about the form-based code process was

that uh Bay Road is is looked at as kind of a scenic corridor with a fairly uh consistent and historic rhythm of, of size, scale setbacks, frontage. s and uh so Um For me it was interesting to look at the the design and context with the

rest of the The street, the Bay Road Street rhythm, and so, uh, and that’s also a fairly large piece of uh Real estate there in front of the public safety building in and around the Council on Aging. So, And we don’t have the full kind of vision of the form-based code, yet it’s sort of midstream.

Uh, but one of the things that’s sort of looked at is not only Looking at scale as being careful that buildings aren’t too big, you know, out of scale with by being too big to adjacent buildings, but it also looks at whether buildings are sized appropriately to their site and whether they hold the

frontage and hold the street, um, in a way that creates a consistency, so form-based code is mainly about uh the public realm, you know, the, the experience from the public. So I guess I just would pose some of those questions to to the board, um, you know, for a little further discussion

regarding the form-based code process that we’ve just begun to embark on. So I’m not sure I understand. Well, maybe I can, um. As Jonathan said, it’s not gonna be downtown. It’s, yes, and part of the downtown area that’s part of the downtown area, the frontage part of all these right through Winthrop

school is part of the foreign-based code. And can you talk to the microphone? Pull the microphone forward. I know I one of the um OK As Jonathan said, this is, uh, sort of midstream in that process of moving forward on that. Which to me raises kind of a question, you know, whether This is

really the right time to even, even consider this project just literally months before they’re going to come up with uh, with a code for the entire downtown and Yes, you can Get underneath the code and do that, but, uh, the frontage, at least as it’s developed by UTI at this point, uh, and kind of the, the strict

geometry that’s being proposed, this is uh Surely it’s not compliant with that, and that’s one of the issues that first came to mind with that. Now that code is not in effect at this point, of course, so that’s not applicable, but uh just as a doing diligence whether that should be coming

to your thinking at all on that and a question I would have, did you, um, Did you consider other locations on this site for that building? Yeah, we talked with Ray, um. About other spots, um, you know, the previous approval was. More behind the Council on Aging, but there’s now a gazebo there

that was done. I don’t know when that was built many years ago, um, wouldn’t really, can’t really fit there now. Um, a lot of it was about it being a beacon, about it being a little bit prominent about it, drawing people in, you know, if it really goes anywhere else on the property, you know, whether

it’s behind the building or whatever, there’s a massive infiltration system behind that building, so you really can’t put it back there you know no one would see it. No one sees it. Right, um, the across the driveway to the right on this plan is all of the utilities that go through the fire

station, right, so we really can’t put it there because the building inspector wants us to have a full foundation. Yeah, you know, uh, frostwall. On this, so, um, we really can’t put it where there’s utilities or over utilities. So this is really the only other I did a drive by and I’m just Put this

out for you. I did a drive by there looking at it, just trying to anticipate what that building would look like in that location, especially if, if something else happens along the street there in front of this building. Yeah, I mean, you could say that about, you know, the fire, the fire station as it is now, right?

It’s, it doesn’t really obviously follow what you’re thinking of for foreign-based code, uh, it’s coded in, but anyway, we were, my, my office was, uh, for the last, well, 4 years prior to this year was right across the street. So I looked at this parcel every day. for 4 plus years. And I’ve lived downtown for 15.

Yeah, well, one possibility that, um, and just doing a drive-by was at the north end of the building there between the, uh, the Building and the driveway from the rear of the building, uh, out to the main driveway, whether that particular location afforded even access to the main building at that.

Point and whether this as a museum piece could be, um, developed in that area as, as opposed to, uh, Here as a freestanding building that’s kind of a small scale building. Uh, you know, it could, you know, again, I haven’t seen the final code on that. It’s not, not, they’re nowhere near it,

but It’s likely that uh they’ll be looking at two-story buildings in the downtown, you know, it’s kind of a minimum. Um At least, uh, back from the road like this. In any case, it I, I, I would encourage you to kind of look at the north end

of the building as a possible way and then you could even link up to the building through that. Exit on the north end. I’m not sure where that goes in the interior, but um. Just the thought that I’m offering as a Wondering if you had considered that particular position and why you feel this one is um The

one you want to lead with on the, on the project. I guess my, I would add to Amel’s question about um if you were to add it, say for example, as an addition to the building, could that In fact, save some cost, and then you could uh More, more glass, more visibility, more, you know.

More site accessibility, uh. If it was, if it was borrowing from The existing structure in terms of accessibility at that point because you can only see three sides of it. Well, right now it would buy accessibility, I mean a full, a fuller, um, sort of definition of accessibility, being able to,

for example, drive the vehicle on onto the to the uh parking area without going across grass or tree roots, and uh um having more linkage of sidewalks and whatnot. So, so And I would concur with Amel that the the scale issue is, is a bit um different from the, the rhythm, the historic rhythm of Bay Road

there, um. So, so those are just questions. So, I think first off, I, I sat in your position for 11 years, um, and was chair for 3 or 4 of those and uh so I know where you’re coming from and I know all about Bylaws and and everything, right? And, and, and and potential bylaws. So, and

that’s what we’re, you’re talking about here is a potential, right? And most of the time in this town, as you probably are aware, you know, bila doesn’t get past the first go around, takes a number of tries. Um, so I think to tie this now with the foreign-based code you’re trying to get

approved at some point, um. You know, we’re, we’re not there yet, as you said, right? And I don’t think that we can really talk about it because it hasn’t been voted on, it hasn’t been vetted by anyone in the town, so I would prefer that we look

at it based on the current. By law, um, what site plan review requires you to do, requires you to look at, and what it doesn’t. So that’s why we’re, that’s why we’re here. You know, this has been going on for a long time, you know, we didn’t

plan to like, you know, sneak this in before, you know, the foreign-based code. You know, so well, right, it was 15 years ago that we really wanted to do this, right? So, um, So I mean I get again, what you’re saying, respect what you’re saying, respect all the time you guys have put into this form-based

code, and I, you know, and from what I’ve seen, you know, agree with a fair amount of it, but we’re not there yet. So we can’t talk about it. It’s actually on pause right now agreed, yes, right. And, um, for yeah, for various reasons and so I understand where you’re going with, you know,

the scale and the rhythm and all all you’re saying this was just offered as, uh, since we’re just a couple of months away from a vote, and it may not, probably not, but OK, may not be approved, uh, but you know, it’s probably not in, not

in April, but it’s going to be delayed to the next, uh, town meeting. Yeah, so you’re talking fall, right? So the the, you know, the form based code would be, would be um If it was passed, would be sort of a mandatory requirement, and I guess what and this, these are all just meant to be

constructive. Uh construction suggestions. What is before us a site plan review and when we look at the, you know, the purpose of site plan review it kind of covers a lot of the, the content that’s in form-based code, um. It’s just, it’s guidelines instead of code, you know, so the under the

purpose, you know, the the the idea or the the the the uh mission here is to make sure that it’s in keeping with the environment, the neighborhood character, the appearance, the neighborhood scale, um. And so that’s, that’s in the purposes, so it’s not just uh maybe that’s something that we would

look at with form-based code, but that’s also in the purposes of the of the uh site plan review. So again, we’re just trying to to to look at the big picture and um Look at whether Uh, I think the largest set of the largest set of interests

are being served, the ideal, at least for my perspective is not to have inconsistency between this project in the form-based code, if, if there can be an accommodation because the, the location of this building is such that it, it would, um, A fact The future, I mean, we’re planning board, so we look to

the future, so the form-based code, uh, conceivably could, uh, Propose that that that. Fairly large amount of space in front of the public safety building could be used for uh multiple purposes, not a single small building, so it’s not it’s to try and find a compromise so that the this this small

building goes in and then the form-based code is completely um kind of antithetical to it in terms of the size of buildings and their setbacks and, and again, And the other thing to remember is the form based code is not just about buildings, but it’s also about the connectivity between the

downtown and Patton Park and making a, a much more walkable, uh, downtown, so it’s conceivable that that when the form-based code is completed, they’ll be a a scenic quarter that can incorporate this building and as I say, not um. Conflict with any potential, uh, For-based code ideas that are

put forward. So I, I’m trying to, to. Think of ways and I hope when we have our continuance, you might also think of ways that that that. We can work together in such a way that that uh That the form-based code can be accommodated because you have to remember, although it hasn’t been adopted by the town, the

town at, at the town meeting did vote to authorize a considerable expenditure of money to develop the form-based code and, and that is a vision for the downtown. So this, this. Little museum, if you will, you know, can really be an asset to that form-based code, but if it goes into effect, then it’s has

the potential to be an impediment to the it doesn’t matter at that point, Marie, like if something gets approved, whether it’s this or some other building downtown, right? Yes, it doesn’t matter. Is that plan and that you’re, you’re talking about a town-owned parcel that is the public safety building, right? That. I can’t imagine.

Most likely even in my lifetime, that another building gets built there in front of the fire station and police station, right, on this, well, not yet alone talk, talk, you know, the parking lot, this little grassy area, yet alone the main entrance to the fire station and police station, you’re

going to put a 2 or 3 story building there. I don’t see that happening. So with, with all due respect, um, and Any realm of time here. Um, whether or not that gets approved bylaw gets approved, so it Any other parcel maybe, but again, this is town controlled and the town and the fire chief and others

would have to agree on that, right? And I probably not gonna happen. Just, just throwing it out there, right? So just the accessibility, pulling on apparatus to have a two-story building coming in and, you know, coming in and out with fire apparatus to try and get out of there if you, if you’re

thinking about putting a two-story building in front of the fire station doesn’t make any sense to me. Um-hum. Yeah, so I think, like I said, I I really like to focus on this, not what might be in 3 months, 6 months, a year, whatever it might be. Again, I get the scale piece, all of that, but

we’re focused on, on this, not that bylaw. We can’t be focused on that bylaw legally right now. That’s right. Yeah. Well, the question was, first of all, Not that you have to do it. The question was, had you considered an alternative location. You said you had, and

this is the best for you. And you considered doing this, uh, or waiting a few months to see in which ways the forum-based code would develop and whether that would offer an impediment. And it was a suggestion, and you can say no, we’re not going to do that. And that’s what your answer is. We, we were

just simply asking, would you consider doing that? Does that sound like a reasonable thing to do. And I know, you know, I too in favor of this project, and uh, but those are the first questions that really should be asked. And so if the answer is

no, the answer is no, and we’ll take a look at the building then. So Stevens here, the fire chief prior fire chief that work. diligently, very hard to try and get this building passed, um, and he got passed years ago, but for various reasons it didn’t get built.

I’d like to have him speak this issue, please. Sure. The reasons and it’s been a 15 year project is because everybody that comes up, they, well, what if it was over here? or what if it was over there? Maybe we should have it up here and it’s Then The funds we had weren’t enough to build the building.

So I had a applied for the original CPC funds and we And the town brought it before the zoning board and everything else, but then Originally when the Public safety building was built we were using the old library. That was our training room and everything else before counsel on aging went in there

and so one spot was possibly over by that building, but then they, then the use changed. And of course With the use changed, they didn’t want that over there. The police didn’t want it over that side either. And We’ve had a number of plans drawn up for outfront where this is, I think. I think at

this point after 15 years, you got to decide. Does this work? You know, not look at other sites, just look at this one. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I appreciate that. I, you know, again that it we’re just waiting to hear some circumstances. Was this the best choice for you, all things considered, you know,

had you covered all of those bases, that was the point of the question, and not really to question doing this project or any of that. If the funds hadn’t dried up with the public safety building because of the price of materials, it would have been built at that time and it would have it would have

all been part of that building. Yeah. Yeah. So it should have been in the main building, actually, but uh, so, so, um, if I would agree with Amel this these are just really questions, you know, not trying to be an impediment here, but just trying to all of us look at the

biggest picture we can and and make sure that we’ve, we’re working together toward a a good common goal. Um, so if, if the answer is you’ve looked at alternatives and this is the best location, um. I guess another question I would have goes back to my first question about when you move the

building, the the vehicle out in and out of the building. Um, right now it’s a little bit landlocked, um, and there’s a single sidewalk that leads from the Council on Aging. Uh travel lane in the parking area. Would there be a way of thinking about maybe uh tying, let me back up for a second. If, say

for example, form-based code magically passed and the town got behind it and there was a vision and what if there was a town green or something in that area and it tied in with Patton Park and it made safe crossing it Asbury Street. What if, what

if, what if? Um. It’d be lovely for this to tie into that thinking. Is there potentially a way of instead of walking from the, the. Uh passage lane of the Council on Aging parking lot. Is there a more universal way to get to it and could that thinking be combined with also maybe being able to move the

vehicle in and out of its building onto asphalt without driving over lawn or tree roots, you know, maybe there’s a way to sort of look at that more, more comprehensively, you know, that, that gives back to the community. It would just be sort of shape and position of of asphalt. These are just,

again, I’m just looking at trying to look at the biggest, biggest picture in asking questions, not trying to impede your project. Trying to make it the best it can be because I do, I do support this. Um, so my name’s Andrew Ellison I’m captain of the fire department, then on the fire department for

25 years, I’ve been involved with the Model T for 35. Um, the Model T is a movable, uh, piece of equipment. It runs on its own power. You have to hand crank it to start it up, um, it has been in parades and things like that for years, it

actually has a seat belt in it because my mom made my dad put one in it so I could ride in it when I was a kid. Um, the part I want to make clear is it’s not something that’s going to be being pulled out. 10 times a year, um, you know, we may,

there is an apron on it, so we could display it, you know, on that apron area, but we’re talking if, if it were to drive on the road, for example. It is a registered motor vehicle, but we’re talking less than 10 times a year. So driving over

the grass is not going to be a problem for it, um, and it’s not like it’s going to leave torn up grass or anything like that, um, and then I did want to also just address an important point with the location. this building is for us, the firefighters. To be able to see it when we come in.

So when we come in at 3 o’clock in the morning and we know that it’s still there. We know that it hasn’t caught on fire, right? We know that no one’s taking it, no one’s broken the windows in the building, um, we have had this vehicle insured. It cannot

be put a value cannot be put on the vehicle. It is an irreplaceable vehicle that can only be rebuilt. So it is very important to us that we be able to see it. Um, and I think it’s very important to the town that they should be able to see

their 100 year old fire truck as well. It offers a sense of history and a sense of place. It, it, it adds to all that, and that’s what we want anyway. I’m going to just make up a comment here. um, we have allocated, um, a lot of time to this, and you are coming back,

so if, uh, the people who are at the podium could keep the remarks short. We do have a, uh, a lot of other things on our agenda and I’d like to actually move on Mad, Madam Chair, I’d like to make a comment if I could, um, I think the conversation this evening indicates there’s a lot of

uncertainty about what the land use in that part of town will eventually be, and there are a lot of people who would like to see it developed more extensively and a lot of people who would like to see it developed less extensively, um, so given all the uncertainty. Is it possible that the building can be designed, I

dare I say, in some way that it would be easily movable. So that if you wouldn’t impede any economic development, we would just, you know, pick up the building, put it on a truck and move it over onto this site, put it down, put the car, put

the fire truck in there. I’m I’m not enough of an architect to know that, but I’m just saying that I think it’s a great location right now, but given all the plans and the uncertainty about that part of town. We might design this building. In a way that makes it a little more, as opposed to

less. Uh, transferable, OK? Move, move, move movable to echo that if, like I say, if a real beautiful big vision came forward and instead of entering into a little bit of chaos at that intersection if it really became a more central town green sort of identity for Hamilton, that building that that piece could be even more

prominent if, if you adopted something like that. I’m just trying to think of all the ideas here so that again, it, it can serve. Everything that you’ve said should serve centerpiece, history, anchor, sense of place, and if other bigger things change around it, can it be flexible? It’s just the the questions, that’s all, just questions. Wheaton’s first

question. Um, you know, you cannot build a building to be removable. apologize. It’s our 8 o’clock. OK, so he has pages go off, but The building can’t be moved because under the, under the building code as it stands today because there’s a vehicle in the building. It has to have a frost wall, which is

a 4 ft frost wall in the ground, concrete, all right, a full foundation basically, uh, actually it’s a half foundation, it’s not a full foundation, and that is a building code today, um, and I’ve spoken with, uh, Rich Maloney, the building inspector. He would not let us put it on you in a microphone.

Excuse me. Yeah. Thanks. So to answer your question, Bill again really quickly, um, under the building code as it stands today and voted on, it has to be a full foundation, uh, because it has a vehicle in it, um, even though, even though it’s an antique vehicle and that’s it’s it’s considered a

garage underneath the building code and it has to have a full foundation and floor poured so it cannot be movable. You know, to answer the other gentleman’s question, I, I, I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name, um, you know, we could go on the what ifs for forever, um, everybody has dreams of what

visions of Hamilton, uh, this is our, been our vision for the last 15 years to put something back that was originally almost in the same spot that, that it’s, it’s going back, it’s just coming a little bit further forward towards the road, um, that’s where it was, it was right in front of the.

out of space, like I said, if you look at them the Forest Bay, it’s just coming 20-30 feet this way, uh, that has been our vision and and our focal point to try and, uh, bring this piece of history, um, back to the town and, and, and treasure it again. Thank you. Hi, Rosemary Kennedy, Russ Street

in South Hamilton. I wanted to bring up a couple of points about form-based code, um, I’m a member of the select board. We had an extensive meeting regarding form-based code in the 3A overlay last night. I’m not speaking for the planning for the uh select board. I am merely presenting information

that we were presented last night from the consultants themselves, um, and in their new um iteration. Of foreign base code and 3A overlay. In fact, the public safety building and it’s surroundings are not included in that current plan. Um, perhaps in the future it might include the public safety area, but again, um, the foreign-based code is

on hold right now. We don’t know when it will resume. We don’t know what the final iteration will be. We don’t know what the citizens in this town will decide what they’re going to approve of, and we’d finally we don’t, we don’t know when, once it If it gets to town meeting, what the result

will be of that is that vote. So I support the fire department and the architect Brian Stein in their comments that this project should be decided on the merits as it stands, um. I will also bring up a couple of things that um the historical grandeur of a

1916 um Model T fire engine is an amazing asset for a town. Um, it’s along the lines with the historical renovation and present and preservation of town hall that we are undertaking. It’s something that should be displayed prominently because it talks about the history of Hamilton, something that has always been integral to our town and I

understand that um Uh, I understand that there’s a vision for a foreign-based code, but a form-based code needs to comply with the desires and needs of a town, and I believe that a prominently displayed antique fire engine in front of the public safety building housed in a very attractive small building is, if anything, going to enhance the

attractiveness of the town and there is much local support for it as reflected in town meeting votes to support this financially. Thank you. I’ll be brief. Sandy Fischer, Green Brook Road, South Hamilton. I agree with what Mary and um, I just really appreciate the work that’s been done. I appreciate

you allowing them to present tonight because it’s a wonderful opportunity to have questions, um, addressed before this final vote in a couple of weeks. Um I appreciate the work that the architect did. I appreciate the firefighters and the work that they’ve done, um, the current chief and the

previous chief, and I think we should support them. Um, I, I think they’ve done a lot of work considering the building, the lighting, the size, being prominent in front of the public safety building is a logical place for it to be, um, so I just wanted to say that I want to affirm, uh, all the

work that’s been done. Thank you. Mhm. Thank you, everyone. Uh, we’ll resume this conversation in 2 weeks. Do we need to vote on continuing the hearing. It’s still out there, but we haven’t voted on it. Did you make Did you make Did you make Did you make the motion Darcy it’s. To discuss it in an

hour later we’re circling back now for reminding me, so, uh, please, uh, indicate uh your assent to the motion, Jonathan Poor Jonathan Poor Bill Wheaton Wheaton Amil Dahlquist Amil Dahlquist, Beth. Hi, Darcy Dale. Darcy Dale, I and Marie Crouch I. So you see everyone in 2 weeks. Uh, thank you for the presentation. I So I’m going to

take um the discussion of potential amendments to the zoning by law out of sequence, um, unless any planning board members object. I believe Robin Stein is probably here. Yeah, yep. I saw her earlier. Santa Claus. It’s. No I am here, yes. Hi, Robin. Hello everyone. How many? Well, I don’t see Robin

Robin, yeah, uh, oh, there she is. I’m waving. Oh, there you are. You’re there I am. You see her features. She’s dark and uh. It’s a little backlit but backlit. Well, it’s not, I’d be sitting in the dark, so I don’t, then you wouldn’t see me at all.

I see something. So Robin, this is the best I can do at the moment thank you for looking at the planning board’s proposed changes to the inclusionary housing bylaw, um, you and I have had conversations. I think that the only section that um Might warrant. Some more detailed discussion is uh the

renumbered section 8. 3.5. Uh And that’s the, um, subsection regarding the uh uh uh fee and Lou. Uh, but if you wouldn’t mind going through your other recommend recommended changes. I was supported, supportive of them, but um the other members of the planning board might not be aware of them and uh they

should consider them and when we vote to to make a a final version of this, uh, bylaw. Sure, so I had, I had sent over. I, well, just to, to start, I received a couple of different Versions of proposed changes. So what I did is take the What I believe to be the existing

base section 8.3 and there’s only bylaw. And then incorporate into that, into that, using that as a base, but changes I understood you intended to make Shona strikethroughs or additions, you know, as they do in an article for a town meeting and then I just made some comments

and recommended changes on top of that. So I do encourage you all to read carefully what I sent over and just make sure since I was compiling that from different sources into one document that, you know, Everything that you expected to see and that you want to see is there. So I don’t know if, if

my dra I thought my draft of my comments is gonna be communicated out to all of you. I don’t know if you’ve seen. That or not, um, we don’t need to, to go through all of it at this point, but, um, you know, my full draft of comments is

available, so I, I thought it was gonna be sent to you before the meeting. Um, I don’t know if you did or did not get that, but um I can just run through a couple of my comments, um, in one of the documents that I received, there was um a

question about changing AMI to AMFI. My recommendation would be to leave that AMI, that’s the term. I do So that Change. I just recommend you leave as is. Um, most of everything else in here that you’ll see in bold and underlying just comes from what you all suggested. I just incorporated it into a single

document, you know, more in an article form, and there were just a couple of little Yeah, I, I don’t know if you need to share it at the whole meeting, but um, Can, can you see that, Robin? Yep, yeah, I didn’t know if you were meaning to share my comments publicly, but I did think that they were

communicated to the board members themselves. So, um, I don’t, I don’t know if that’s a document the board wants to make public at this point, that would kind of be their call. I, I, I, I think that basically I can summarize up some uh some of the changes that you suggested an 8.3.3.

The existing bylaw refers to 24 months and Robin, uh, recommended that we change that to 36 months. I don’t have a problem with that. So, and again, just to clarify, it’s not necessarily my recommendation as much as I was just letting you know that what we commonly see is 36 months so

that you can all decide what we want it to be. You know, it’s really a policy decision for you, what you want that term to be. I was just letting you know that we often see 3 to 6 months. I, I do have a question, um, on 8.3.45.4 or is that? So we’re

gonna get, we’re gonna get down to that. I think we’re we’re just going through so iteration, so if the um if you usually see 36 months, then. That’s acceptable to me. Does anyone have any problems with making that change. I’m not going to quibble about, you know, the stylistic stuff. Yeah, no, I, I

just wanted to, I wasn’t sure what you all had, so I just wanna make sure my comments are being comprehensive. Right. Um, so that, that does take us down to Um, what will be the new section. 8 34. Um, that’s so stylistic, so I don’t think there’s much to discuss there, but stop me if you have

questions. Um, and as Marie said, the bulk of the comments on section 835, the new 835, the old 834, which gets into the the and low, so a couple things on this one, I added. Just the sentences as in addition to providing the on-site units, you can improve an alternative because it

seemed like that was missing, right? That it wouldn’t just talk about one of the following methods, but also on site would be an option. So I added that sentence. And then, um, you know, I think most of the discussion is about little paragraph 3, which has to do with how you calculate the

field. And so one of, you know, one of the things that I noted is I thought it was a little bit unusual to calculated that the move based on AMI. As opposed to Um, perhaps some measure that’s tied to uh sale price or a construction price.

Um, and so that was my comment about that, um, and also that Just to be really clear about how you’re calculating and if you are going to do it. Off of AMI because Um, I don’t think the reference in here that says low-income household or poor persons is what you want. So there’s a There’s AMI, which is

just a number. And then there are. AMI with different income levels for different households. Um And so my comment was, if just to clarify, do you mean the low-income household of poor person. I personally think that the uh That this section should refer to AMI and basically say an equivalent fee in lieu of units for each

required unit shall be 3 times the area median income. As determined by The US Department of Housing and Urban Development for the Boston Cambridge, Quincy, um, FMR area. I’m shortened that, that includes Hamilton and for the most recent available data year uh AMI shall be used in calculated in accordance with this section regardless of the

unit size or the number of persons likely to occupy each required unit. In other words, AMI is the standard you multiply. by 3 and that’s the number full stop. We don’t get into the number of units or the number of people or the any of those things so it’s easy to calculate and they’re it’s

unambiguous and. That’s my view and I wanted not to be a fixed number because this bylaw is going to continue for many years and AMI and costs and everything else will rise. So it’s important that it be. You know, AMI, which rises over time. Right. So, Robin, I have a question. Um. What do you

usually see? It sounded like you don’t usually see AMI or you see a different options. What would the other there are different examples out there, um, I think one that I had provided. Um, had it a percentage of the market rate sales price, you know, it was

tied more to the cost of the unit as opposed to an income level, um, there’s not a lot of guidance from any court or anything about how this gets calculated. We just normally look for a connection between, you know, the sea and The purpose, which is creating new housing. So, you know, I think

some communities have gone well. Say, you know, uh, a percentage of the average market rate, you know, sales price in the development or something like that. Um, but if you’re going to use AMI. I think as Marie said, it needs to be really clear what you’re using, um,

and if it’s just the regular old 100% market rate AMI then, you know, I think you can tweak the language to make that clear. You know, I just flagging that, you know, that’s not, I, I can’t think of another community that does it the way that you do it. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it may be

something that, you know, somebody takes issue with because again, we just want to be able to, you know, have a defensible connection between how you’re calculating the fee and the intention which is to develop affordable housing, right, is to result in the creation of affordable housing, being able to be built elsewhere and have the funds to

build it elsewhere to otherwise. So Access to affordable housing. When I was on the Affordable Housing Trust, I did look at some bylaws from other communities, and I have to say they were all over the map and I variety, yes, and, and some were just discretion of the planning board that I thought

was the most legally untenable I would not recommend that. Yeah, I think that’s, um, you know, folks need to know what’s required of them when they, when they apply and, and these bylaws are a little tricky because keeping in mind that this is an alternative, right? Somebody could always build on site. So, um I when you get

it’s not a mandatory requirement, it’s an option. Sorry. When you get into market rate and all that kind of stuff, well then there’s going to be someone who says it’s this and that and the other and units will be sold at different prices and all of a sudden what should be simple becomes

complex, so I think if we, uh, just go with AMI, uh, eliminate any of the reference for a low income household, um, you know, I think it cleans it up. And the other reason I would go with AMI is because that’s what’s in the bylaw now and, and so. Anybody who’s built senior housing in Hamilton.

It has seen AMI in this bylaw, but, um, Uh, I know from the, um, uh, special permit proceeding, uh, with, uh, um. Ah, the, yeah, 133 Essex project. There, there were questions about this and they trying to talk about bedrooms and this and that and the other, and frankly, it to me take MI AMI multiply it by 3,

you’ve got the number, nobody can argue about it. It is what it is. So I, I throw it out to people on the planning board, um, whether they want to change that or do something different or pretty much leave it as is, but make it as straightforward and unambiguous as possible. I’m with you, Marnie, straightforward and and

unambiguous is the way to go. So then, uh, if we’re agreed on that, um, then the. Robin did add a 4th provision, which I thought was an excellent catch and that was um an affordable housing unit approved under this bylaw shall be deed restricted as affordable housing units in perpetuity or for so long is allowed by law,

and that was a really good um uh save she also noted that uh or asked me whether we whether there are any inclusionary housing rules and regulations. There are none. I, I, um, I hate to use the word bandwidth. I can just as a side note that Jim and Marjorie this afternoon

were talking about cliches and bandwidth is one of them. So, uh, I don’t think that that the planning board has the capacity in the near future to adopt inclusionary housing rules and regulations, so that should be eliminated so no one goes looking for what doesn’t exist. Right. And then uh in section uh. 8.3. I think that’s 6.4,

that’s a stylistic change and then when we transmitted the bylaw to Robin, we inadvertently left out some of the other provisions and, and she, uh, very um smartly added them back. There was never any intention to eliminate them. Great. And then I just noted one other little change in the

definition section. If you look at the current bylaws definition section, I think it refer inclusionary housing reference to Section 8.7, and I think it should be 8.3. So I just threw that in as a cleanup as well. All right. I mean, Robin, we’re going through the bylaws looking for scrivener’s

errors, and I don’t know if you were here when I referred to the uh uh the site plan review bylaw. And I don’t think I heard that now. Oh, there’s a whole section that makes absolutely no sense. OK. Well. You know, didn’t catch these things as you go, um, but I was

uh looking at the bi myself or just anything else that might need to change regarding the inclusion area and I just, I just noticed it. As long, if the one online is current then it references section 8.7, and I thought it should be 8.3, so I threw that in for you though confirm you wanted to make that

change as well. Yeah, no, and those are the kinds of mistakes we’re trying to To, to find, um, Because it, it would appear that when changes were made to the bylaw It, it, um, There was no follow through with say a a fine function on Word to see where. Things may have changed.

I mean, sometimes it’s hard, but as you see them, you know, you might as well clean them up, right? Yeah. So I mean, in all, you’re not making a ton of changes here and then most of the changes are pretty, pretty minor, um, but I don’t know if

you have any other questions for me on it. Where was the definition of the AMI, Robin? It wasn’t AMI. So if you go into um the definition section now. There’s a whole section on inclusionary housing and the first sentence says for the purposes of section 8.7 I the following terms that are the following meanings, and I just

think that should be for purposes of section 8.3. Absolutely, that’s correct. So I, I put that in the version that I sent to you. OK. And then the definition of AMI goes under inclusionary housing. Yeah, we have that. I believe we have that in here moving.

So we’re not put it back, let’s see, hold on. Yeah. So if you go to the last part of the draft, it says section 11 definitions. It says move the term and definition area need income. Um, to be ordered after the definition of affordable housing restriction, and then it has that changed in my house.

OK, so, uh, just one other, one other thing I wanted to know, and this is something that I think came up um during a prior project review. But, but I think you need to confirm if the current version of the bylaw is even correct. Um, because for something that we looked at. Previously, the

introductory language to 83, what? Was more will become 5. Um Like what’s in the online version? I’m not sure it’s actually the correct version that was adopted by town meeting, but that might be something you guys need to check into. Um, and we should fix it if necessary. Or, um,

for 8343. Where it reads an equivalent fee of low. So I think currently it should read An equivalency in load of units maybe. Made And then it goes on to safety and for. A fee payment for each required unit shall be 3 times. And I’m not certain that what is in the online version is right, and I,

I think somebody may need to go back and check the last change that was made to that with the town clerk. And let’s just confirm that, like what that language is already supposed to be. Yeah, I think it is supposed to be an equivalent fee in lieu of units for each required unit shall be 3 times

the area median income. OK. So some documentation that I had received previously, I had a note. That it should read an equivalent fee in lieu of units may be made the. AC and new payment for each required unit shall be 3 times, etc. And so I just, I think somebody you should talk to the town clerk

or, or with the town planner to go back and look at the last time this was amended and just make sure that you’re using the right base version. Right My, can you, can you speak with Corinne Cale about that because in, I think that that I I just

handwrote into my copy of the zoning bylaw pretty much what Robin just said, but I can’t now. raised my hand and swear on a Bible that that that’s what it should be. So, Robin, you think the The current version of the bylaw is not consistent with the, the Last Amendment to the this section

of the bylaw. I, there was an issue about that that came up during a prior project that we looked at. Um And I can um I can try to dig out and send you what I have from that, but it’s something I would confirm with the townfolk. OK. So Robin,

would you advise that we vote again now to approve uh the inclusionary housing by law, uh, as we’ve edited it. Tonight Well, I don’t, I don’t know where you are in the process as far as, uh, I take it you haven’t submitted this in this life for to formally initiate the amendment process yet,

right? Oh, OK, so you want us to just go ahead and incorporate your changes and then forward them to you, um, and then, and once we do that, then you can go ahead and draft whatever language is necessary so that the amendments are on the warrant. No, so the way a zoning bylaw amendment works.

Is the planning board And submit to the select board, a proposed zoning bylaw chain. And then the select board refers it back to the planning board to have a public hearing under Chapter 48. Section 5. So the playing board, the zoning board, the select board, the owner of an interested property.

Any of those categories can initiate a zoning bylaw amendment. So I don’t know what stage you are in this process. My understanding was you were developing this to then submit to the select board, uh, to start the bylaw amendment process itself, but that you hadn’t referred it to them yet.

Like this isn’t a planning board public hearing. This is just something you’ve been discussing as an agenda item, right? That’s correct. So, OK, so when you’re, when you’re ready, however you, whether you want to Have a clean version to review with all the changes that your next meeting and then

vote to submit it, however you want to do it is fine, but the next step is to take a vote to of the planning board to formally submit it to the select board to start, you know, to initiate the process of amending the zoning bill.

OK, so in other words, um, What needs to be done is the version uh that that we’re discussing now that incorporates your proposed changes in the language that we’ve agreed, uh, with respect to AMI then gets referred to the select board they send it back to us. We have a public hearing,

presumably, um. The May or may not be comments, but I, I tend to doubt it, and then we send it to you and you draft the language so that it’s um. can be included in the warrant? So this already is set up as a warrant article, right? It’s

already set up at the top to see if the town will amend. But there’s nothing for me to do at this point, OK. You guys clean it up. I mean, I can look at it if you need me to, but there’s nothing that you need me to do. So either you could vote it tonight, but someone’s still

gonna have to make all these changes and we want to make sure the right version goes with the select board or you could You know, have it cleaned up, clean it up for your next meeting. Accept what you want to accept, change whatever needs to be changed. Take one more look at it, that it’s

right, it’s what everyone needs to submit, and then the planning board can just take a vote to we go to initiate only by law movement, um, change the section 8.3 and relate inclusionary housing, however you want to vote, you submit that to the select board. They send it to you. You have a

public hearing. You make a vote of what your report or recommendations are going to be two town meetings. And then, um, the, you know, the select board can put it on the warrant. And, you know, we obviously do a final warrant review, but, um, You know, unless you need my help, there’s nothing else in

the process for me to do. OK, so then the final question, I, you know, and we had talked about this once. We have two choices we can either submit a uh a fully amended, uh, section. Or we can basically. Do a strikeout and an insertion, uh, for the warrant. In assuming all the other steps are

properly taken, and I think you recommended since the changes were relatively minimal that we just um don’t, uh, eliminate the existing section and replace it, but that we just show the changes. I would not do this as a strike and replace. My recommendation would be that you just Do it, um, you know,

showing the individual, you know, kind of minor changes and additions, but I don’t think that you need to strike your entire including housing section and then adopt an entirely new inclusionary housing section. I would just do it showing individual changes in addition. got it. OK. All right, we’ll take care of that then. More steps than I

thought. So do we need a process to send it to? No, we’re not ready to do that. We’re not, we’re not there yet. OK, great. Things take time. Got it. And so uh with respect to our plan to take care of scrivener’s errors. It’s the same procedure even though they’re really almost typographical errors. Yes, any

amendments to the zoning bylaw have to be submitted to the select board to initiate the process, and then they get referred back to the planning board to have a public hearing and you make a recommendation on those changes to town meeting. OK. All right. Does anyone have any further

questions for Robin? No. Robin, I don’t know if you have a few minutes, but you, I don’t know if you’ve done any work with the ADU legislation, but we’re gonna talk about that briefly, um, if you just have a few minutes to hang on, you might

be able to shed some light on this for us. Sure. Yeah, no, I can hang on and we can talk about that also. OK. You really Move on, Marie. Robin need to weigh in on the groundwater protection overlay district. It’s a question. I’m not sure that I, I can. I wasn’t aware

of. What you’re doing with that, but I can try to answer questions, or if not, I’ll get you the answers. what we’ve done with that is, um. Really so minimal, but we can um. Uh, forward you that change. It’s really um. Well, it’s a few

words, but it has it has big impact a lot of impact, um, So I can read you what we did. I mean, it, why don’t, why don’t you plan to send it to me and I’ll take a look at it. It’s just not, it’s not likely on the fly that I’m gonna be able

to process it and comment on it, um, but again, if you’re making zoning by, and I think that the zoning bylaw change, it’s not a general bylaw, right? That’s not in the stormwater. No, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a zoning by law zoning, OK, so it’s the same process all zoning bylaw amendments have to go. From the

select board to the planning board or here. So what should probably accompany this is some explanation of why it’s being changed. Some background. Or why the proposal is there. So was that a question to me? No, I was just stating to the board that before it’s transmitted to you for review, we should give

you some background. So you’re not just looking at the word it over and then I, I can jump on a call with one of you if you want to talk about it. I’ll understand it. Well, however you want to do it is fine. OK. Anything else on, uh, The inclusionary housing bylaw and

there’s been no movement with respect to ADU, so, uh. The waiting It could we just talk about it briefly, Marie, I’m sorry. No problem. Um, So I, I think the way we left it at the last meeting was I would look into kind of where the state was on drafting their regulations, which I did, um.

But the long and short of it, we’re not expecting anything in the near future. So I called some other planners and, uh, basically, a lot of towns aren’t waiting for the state to issue the regulations they’re just going forward with draft bylaws because Um, the state’s not anticipating that those

will be. They might even be finalized by the time the law goes into effect. So the challenge we have is this law goes into effect, the 80U law goes into effect. February 2nd, um, and our bylaw allows A0U, but it’s by special permit instead of by right. So there’s this question of if someone

applies for an ADU after February 2nd, how do we handle that? So, ideally I’d like to have uh a bylaw change. Relatively soon so that, uh, I don’t think we’re going to make February 2nd, but if we made April, at least there wouldn’t be a huge gap there. Um, The challenges we’re hoping the

state would issue these regulations because they’ve they’ve said they would, but it’s not gonna be enough time for us to, um, Really help us because Uh, the time, timeline just isn’t there. So, um, I’m not sure, Robin, if you have any sort of Uh, guidance for you. Imagine other towns. I, I

found some newspaper articles where a lot of towns are complaining about the same issues, so, um, yeah, I mean, I generally we, we had recommended that towns try to hold off on making changes unless there’s something you felt like you actually needed to do until the guidelines came

out, um, you know. comes sooner than later, obviously, we don’t know exactly when they’re gonna come. So You know, if you, I, I mean, you, I don’t think you’re gonna have a special town meeting of any sort where you could make any changes before February 2nd anyway, correct?

No earliest, the earliest would be April. OK, so I mean, I think what, you know, we’ve um Just been trying to Wait and see what, um, you know, the guidance is gonna be so that we can Best advise on, on how to proceed, we can take a look at

your existing. Bylaw and comment on that if that would be helpful. It’s something you and I can talk about and we can take a look at, you know, at, at what it says and what you’re thinking as far as how you want to regulate given the new law going forward and help at least start putting something

together and then if we get guides, you know, guidelines in the meantime. We can adjust it as necessary. So in your view, is our, our existing ordinance, um, enforceable during that interim period, even if it conflicts with this. new state law. So, for example, if your ordinance requires a special

permit, after February 2nd, you’re not going to be able to require a special permit. You’re not gonna be able to apply the special permit requirement after February 2nd, um. But just as a high level, you know. General comment, I again, I can look at the specifics in the bylaw, and we can talk about it some more,

but, um, and, you know, in my opinion, you’re not gonna be able to apply any part of the bylaw. If at all, after February 2nd, that is specifically prohibited by the statute. So special permit requirements of our occupancy, things like that, you’re not going to be able to apply.

So there might be some value then in amending the bylaws so that we like the boards talked about requiring site plan review, things like that, um, getting that in the bylaw if, if the state comes back later and says it’s an issue, I don’t know how they can really blame us because I don’t think, I think

the state is, is gonna be fine with site plan review. I think that’s fine, um, you know, whether it’s something that the board ultimately wants to have for all its or detached first attached or things like that. I mean, those are the kind of conversations on a policy level on a policy perspective that

you folks need to talk about and we can help with, but ultimately you have to decide how you want to regulate them from a resource perspective and and what have you, um. You certainly, like I said, I, you know, I, I would hope by spring we would have the guidance. I would hope that before folks

are meeting at town meetings, we’re gonna have this guidance. I would hope we would have it. Sooner than that. So, you know, you can certainly start working on something for the Springtown meeting. You know, that we think is going to be consistent with The statute, and if we get

some guidance in the meantime, then it needs some adjustment before then, you know, there’s still some time. And what would our timeline be for getting it on the warrant so we have to have a hearing so far in advance like what. Um, I don’t know the select boards warrant timeline off the top of my head.

I think that’s something Mark can probably check with Joe and get a sense of what the timing would be for the process and then we can back time out of it. I don’t know as far as opening and closing and posting of warrants and all of that stuff.

Um, I think we’ll have to check with Joe on that. OK. We have to have things pretty nicely tied up by, I think early February and that time range. Make sure we have the hearing and time and then get, OK, so we would need to work on this in January. Yeah, and, and

again, given the confines of the new law, um, you know, it should be a pretty basic, simple. set of, of regulations. Well, I, I, I threw something together, you know, in short order and really the the most substantial changes are the switch from special permit to buy right, uh, the, uh, owner

occupancy is no can’t be required, uh, and their parking, uh. Issues if you’re within a some distance of a, a commuter m yeah, so those were the biggest changes, but there, there’s no prohibition against uh regulating Airbnbs and that type of thing, short term rentals and can prohibit the

short term rental use if you want to, you can. I took our existing bylaw in just made those types of changes to it, so we have something on paper, but whether uh we want to wait before to see what the guidelines are. Who knows? I mean, when you see the 3A guidelines, the lock.

could look entirely different than then what it does now, so it, it’s, it’s a it’s a hard call. So maybe after the holidays we could take a look at what you put together. We already have it. You all have it. You can find it on your computer. was transmitted to you, probably a

month, a month or 6 weeks ago, but we can send it again if you, if you want my help with it, just let me know. We’re happy, I’m happy to take a look. I’m happy to talk about it, um, you know, ultimately it’s gonna just involve some base kind of policy decisions for you folks.

You know, from a resource perspective, you want every attached ADU back that site plan approval, you know, if you’re talking about something that’s being built within an existing structure. I don’t know if the cycling perspective how much there is for you to review, you know. I think it’s

those are questions for you folks to talk about and think about, um, it’s there’s within and detached and then there’s sort of semi-attached and that’s when you get into the roof lines and making sure that there’s um that yeah, it’s more like an addition and that’s, that’s kind of the, the loose

end because done poorly, it can really affect, um, what authority do we have over RDU really can only. Guide This kind of development with site plan review. OK. But that site plan review for this type of uh uh appropriate, it seems to, I think would work well.

Sure. And I’m happy to help. So just let me know what I can do. That’s great, Robin. Thank you, Robin. We’ll be in touch. All right. If you don’t need me for anything else, I’ll sign off. Yeah. All right, thank you all. Have a good evening. Thanks a lot. Uh, so let’s. Assess It’s,

uh, approximately 45. Uh, Do we have any other um issues with respect to um. Amendments to the zoning bylaw. Uh I’ll ask you, uh. Mark about this. Status of the compilation of the scrivener’s errors. I’m just missing a couple, um, Bill, I don’t know if I have yours. I’m It might have been something I misplaced, but, uh,

there were There were 2 people I didn’t have, uh. Written comments from and I don’t off the top of my head, you were one of them. I can’t remember the second person. OK. I handed to mine. I did too. Right Um So Ah I think that the um With

respect to the um Site plan review. I, I don’t know if the, those, the changes to that, there’s some that are scrivener’s errors and others that might be more substantive, but maybe we could talk about that more in depth. At our next meeting, um, so at this juncture we have um As a boy, a

decision to make, do we want to attempt to talk about the form-based code or do we want to just go forward and talk about the status of the master plan, which is about ready to get up on the town’s website and adjourn or do we want to um Spend another half hour or 45 minutes talking about the

form-based code. I, I’d like to pose some questions to the board about what might be useful um in preparing now that we have time in preparing for um the review of the foreign-based code when it comes before us, in other words, it might be interesting to go around the room and just see

what would be, is there anything that would be valuable to discuss in advance of that, um, so for example, Pat Norton, not here tonight, he said, you know, he supported the idea of looking at the looking at all of the potential. pitfalls and weaknesses and prepping ourselves so that we don’t make

those mistakes, um, you know, so that would be 11 exercise, um. Another exercise would be, um, you know, how we would go through analyzing uh uses and adjacency of uses and defining uses. In other words, is there anything that we want to prepare ourselves with, um, So that when we get a very large

complex set of documents in front of us, we know what we’re looking at why we’re looking at it, and what our. purposes in reviewing it. So it’s an open question to the board. I think it would be very useful to talk about uses in in in the context

of this, um. For-based code and we have the table of use regulations and that can Kind of be a starting point. Uh, but the other thing that I think might be helpful is and and we’ve seen it from Ute, the various drawings that they have, the building forms and, and I think Maybe walking through

that so everyone understands what is actually being depicted, you know, for those of us who aren’t architects, you know, Do we really understand what that depiction is because if we don’t understand it, you can rest assured that the public will not understand it. So that’s great, you have to

interpret it and enforce it correctly, you know, it’s your tool for for reviewing, commenting, and approving, so we don’t understand it, then we’re not working correctly as a board. So let me see if I have it I’d offer it up as a broad set of questions for the board. What would be Now that

we have some time to prepare, what would be useful preparation. So I have, uh, I have some of the The materials that you teal. provided, say, with respect to Frontage types to does everyone understand, um, The terminology. Um, I think what Jonathan doesn’t want to get into detail at this point.

It’s just, uh, I don’t mean actual detail for Hamilton’s form based code, but just to understand the language about setbacks and, you know, when you’re talking about building heights and and that type of thing, whether, whether people really understand. These types of figures. I take, I think

what he wants to know is, uh, Because there has to be preparation to do this. We need to get some samples. We could look through, through that, but kind of schedule, see what, what are the issues that people have. Uh, do we still want to talk about 3A. We still want to, you know, this is really about

the form-based code, I think at this stage. What would be most useful to everybody to at this stage know. Uh, fairly shortly, and it could be Could be February, probably youil is back. They’re uh. Starting to give us code information that we’re going to be fast and furious, they have a short time

to do it. Um, So, um, With, with the board like sort of a list of the, the, again, I think it’s gonna be preparation. We’re not gonna do it tonight. Am I right? That’s right. It was really just sort of what, what are, what’s the appetite, what’s the curiosity, what’s

the the confusion about what we might be reviewing to see actual documents that were apt to see from you like sample documents. Would that be useful that’s what I’m getting at. Are they willing to talk about it or not talk about it. I mean, and if we’re still at the place where um folks feel like, why

are we even doing this, then we should talk about that, you know, if, if, if we’re at the, at, at the baseline of like why are we even bothering with this? Why did we, why did we authorize that money, you know, we need to get to the bottom of that so that we’re, you know,

we’re having productive discussions. I sort of like what Pat Norton came up with, you know, and they call it a scientific or scientific approach, I guess, but, uh, and, and typically you would do that and say structural engineering for building is going to fail in what way? it failed, that’s

kind of an exercise you go through, uh, you have to go do that kind of analysis, but the idea to look at um what are common errors in writing a form-based code. I know Darcy last week you were developers, that’s what I’m worried about and I know a lot of people are worried about predatory

developers, and how, how are we protected against it and that’s one of them, and, but the idea is, uh, Come up, we can come up with a list of what are the issues each one of us has to, that we need to be sure it is incorporated somehow in the

foreign-based code. So we’re kind of grasping now for information from the planning boards, anybody who has an interest in it to. So we can start putting together a list of um maybe a good sample, a sample code would be good to look at so people can at least see what the documents will

look like that might raise more questions. Bill, what were you saying? I’m I’m a little unsure. It’s been adopted successfully about how it links and connects to the current code. Which is use space, so we have to have A parallel. Bylaw It replaces the bylaw for the downtown.

It replaces it. OK. And one of the does that extend outside of the downtown just just the whatever the line is that everybody agrees to. OK. And it replaces it and what’s interesting is when you mention that one of the common errors is to clumsily mix conventional coding with form-based code in

a hybrid form and that often creates conflicts which serves neither code well. So there’s an example of a pitfall. So that’s why you tend to replace rather than hybridize. examples of failed, um, form-based codes so we can avoid those pitfalls. If it does in fact pass in this town, but where are the where

are the disappointments and the failures and the, because I know they’re out there, they gotta be, it’s only been, um, you said you’re gonna see a failed one, but, um, but, but what are, what, it’s been around long enough so that there are have been Pockets maybe there’s information

available now with a little research on what are the aspects that you really ought to look out for when you write a form-based code. I think that’s really could be useful. I think Will brought that up a couple of meetings ago, right? Hasn’t been challenged yet? Do we know what those challenges were and were they successful?

Like you brought that up a couple weeks ago, a couple of meetings ago. I think we talked, well, I, I don’t think you were, were you at the last meeting? I was. Yeah, we talked about a case, um, I don’t know if I have it. It was from South.

and Obviously we didn’t have the code itself, but a developer challenged up these guidelines that were part of the farm-based code and basically the land court, um, Was Determined that the these guidelines, I don’t know if I have the case here. Um, where, uh, fine because it didn’t,

they did not give the planning board what it referred to as untrammeled developed um untrammeled discretion and that these guidelines were sufficient, uh, to enable anyone who wished to develop to understand what the intent of the form-based code was and of course this was There were about 20 guidelines and um. The the form-based code is

contemplated here, well, presumably have some type of uh language, but also, um, Drawings and plans to accompany that language and, and I, I don’t know if I made myself clear, but In, in Laying out those graphics. I wanted to make sure that the planning board understand understood the

graphics in terms of say the, the building height, how, how these metrics are reflected on paper so that when you look at the drawings, you understand, well this is related to the building uh the pitch of the roof for the setback and the setbacks could be, uh, uh, a cafe area, an outdoor cafe area

or an. awning or just the building front so that the, the, the language that the. Architectural language is understood by the planning board. And then, obviously, I always like to see the actual words that accompanied these as well because they’re always more explicable, but I, I don’t know if you understood what I

was saying, but when you see those graphics and what they mean. And the planning board understand that? Can the, can the planning board discern the meaning from the pictographs that are part of a form-based code. I’m not referring to anything that you teal did, but what you see in a good form

based code in terms of how, you know, the landscaping is is structured, how that’s how, how, um, uh, a consultant would, would display that information and obviously to your point, the Richard Planning Board has to be, uh, enforce that, so it has to be clear enough so that you can look at it and go, oh

yeah, that’s the setback, that’s the building height, and these are the words and the, the graphics that are used to to display that information. Do you know what I’m saying? Because, um, uh, you know, a number of us aren’t that familiar with reading plants, and I’ll never forget we had a

site plan review for some. I don’t know. Was it an awning, and you looked at it and it was like, that’s fine, and you all said, oh no, no, a car could hit one of those structures and there were all fall down and so you, you know, that when you

look at those drawings, they’re very explicable to you, but I want to make sure that the planning board sees what you see. Well, I, I think looking at sample form based codes, maybe just not just one, but maybe at least 2, so you can see that there’s variation, but you can see the combination.

ity between two could be useful, right? and then how those, those, um. Uh designs, the graphics are supported with language. So yeah, I also wonder, uh, not to rehash an earlier conversation, but where there’s some flexibility in the foremost code form based code for say a town monument or I

mean there’s good examples what happened earlier today. You know, a, you know, a, a focal point for the town, whether it be a museum like building for multi or whether it be a monument downtown for World War II veterans or whatever it be, is there some sort of flexibility for the phone based

code to allow things like that that don’t, they still have to go through the, the, the site plan review so that they’re pleasing to the eye to the planning board, but they may not adhere to the exact setbacks or, or similar things like that. Is there some flexibility in the flow base code to allow things like that.

Well, I think that’s the civic space comes in, right? Yeah, there, there is developer can always submit something. For decision making and The planning board has the discretion to, uh, Because the way the code is written, it is not that exact. So if there is a way you can kind of make

something work that even though it’s not prescribed exactly like that if it appears not to do any damage to the, uh, To the area, to the I wonder if something like that that building that was shown to us earlier time might fall in that category where it’s not really a housing development or a

building or an office. It’s more of a focal point for the town where a monument or or call a museum where, but it’s a focal point. It’s not meant to be a a building the specifics of that would um come up in that a form-based code is not

lot by lot, but it’s looking at a, it looks at it as a comprehensive plan. So instead of looking at this as an individual floating lot with no content. around it in form-based code, what you’d be doing is you’d be looking at this building in relationship to the adjacent buildings, the intersection. Uh, Patton Park, all the connections,

walkability, um, and you could easily say, OK, here’s how all those pieces hang together and this does not disturb that pattern. So it’s actually easier whereas right now, right now there’s no context for this. No, I understand that. I guess the, the viewpoint that I’m coming from is it’s, you want to be a little bit different

because there’s a focal point, right? It’s something that you want people going through town and it catches their eye, right? So it’s not necessarily blended in fitting perfectly. It’s not. That’s a little bit unique and different it’s, but it’s looked at, but as something unique different and a focal point and special and unusual in context.

That’s the difference in contexts. The board has that flexibility, what usually you’re not going to find is the reverse of that where you’re, the, the developer is saying to you, we want to follow that. That form-based code, but you’re thinking, well, I’d rather change it, you know, and as long as we don’t do the

changing, that’s fine, but the reverse part, we can be more flexible in interpretation, let me just say one thing, uh, and it, it sort of came to mind with what was presented today because I, I’m sure everybody’s in favor of it, but The Uh, going forward, the one thing I would like to Hear from

planning board members or not here is uh I like it. Uh, without a specific reason and, and I say that only because having been through a lot of the design guideline type of meetings, um. There’s generally uh a reason that something is done that is That really is, um, Uh, worthy of talking about in

terms of, you know, the, the proportions, the, the relation to other buildings and and so forth and that the whole notion of like it kind of brings in beauty, which is very subjective and that’s the kind of thing we, I think, need to avoid talking about when we start reviewing projects, and I

think, you know, I could That’s tough though. You’re trying to remove the human factor, right? That’s a human, not necessarily. I could see you want to compliment that human factor, hey, I like it. Can we do this? or is it flexibility to do this, but you can’t just remove the

human factor, right? No, what, what you can do is you can You can say I like it because it fits with in such and such a way. And what’s really awesome is, you know, for example, I don’t want to get into this, but just like every portion of

the bylaws has a purpose, you know, there’s and the purpose section is really rich with intent, very rich, and what’s great is if you’re, if you have a good feeling about it, you can go and and read the list of words in it and figure out where you resonate with it. I resonate because it, it’s

sensitive to the environment or it um fits with the neighborhood character. It fits with the neighborhood scale or it doesn’t have negative financial impacts or whatever, whatever the list is and, and, and that’s, this is all the human factor in here. This, the purposes list, and that’s in every single, every single bylaw, every single section has

a has a purpose section. So maybe that goes back to my first question and I’m just thinking out off the cuff, so forgive me about having that flexibility. Maybe we need something written for things that are not, uh, um, office buildings or, or, or apartments or, or housing. that’s like a monument or something like this.

Do we need something in the form base code that says there’s flexibility for these types of things that way you can refer to that idea. That’s a good thing to bring up with you, I think, when they’re here, because in addition to the what Marty was talking about the, um, the graphics, there’ll be a

text in there as well where they try to pick up things that uh sort of answer the question, what about those buildings that are grandfathered because that’s a complicated area. How much renovation can you do? Before you’re complied to go with the, use the code, you know, because they can make minor changes to it, minor

additions, that sort of thing, easily, but so there’s gonna be a lot of text associated with that, and that’s where you would that we don’t have anything within the, the downtown area that, that, uh, within the form-based code zone, that’s historical, right? That’s all the other side of town, right? Railroad Avenue is

historical on Bay Roads historical historic commission apparently looks at anything older than 1940. Now. You’re not on a register. Well, they have a demolition delay ordinance for anything over 1940 1940 and they looked at that very Carefully apparently be a conflict then with anything that happens to it in a antique building that does

not adhere to a phone-based code but needs renovations. Could there be a conflict there? what what generally happens in the building code is if you have an historic building and there’s a code violation by the nature of the building being older, uh, like ADA or something, uh, access to the building or something, yeah,

something like that. You can file a, um, a modification. and get that reviewed, uh, by the building official, uh, and the state would be the ultimate one. You do it first of all through your local billing official and it goes to the state for an evaluation and then a decision.

Like, yes, you can because especially if it’s on the register, you know, a building that is answer your question. But, but, and so I think we should probably consider adding something in the forage code that you should write that down as a, you know, something that. But just to get back to Jonathan’s question and how,

how, how can we prepare? for the next meeting if we have time to. To do that, that would start off on the right foot to get us as much information as we can, and it, it sounds like and I think it’s a good idea to look at a standard code and

kind of go through it. Um I know that’s going to require probably a PowerPoint, and I really don’t want to do it. I’ll, uh, I’ll give Pat Norton a notice so he doesn’t have to come and in charge of PowerPoint. What we could do, part of his point was if he hadn’t advanced that way he can

review it and be prepared for questions. We can run through it quicker then, right? Yeah, so if it’s passed out and we even have paper form in front of us, then the PowerPoint’s more for the public to see, and we can be looking at paper and

have a dialogue we can get it to you in advance, yeah. it in advance. That’s just the easiest way again for the public if you find a good form-based code, the PowerPoint is, it’s not like you’re making you’re just copying it and putting it. So, uh, given the time, I think the last question

I have is the status of the master plan, and I know that Amy and Mark were working on a new, uh, cover To replace the one that had the, uh, rust on it. This rusty sign. Let me see. Are you prepared to show something or? Uh, meal you, I

can, I do. Can I share the screen? Mm Are you gonna show us a before and after and after. See, this is what the old fire house looked like in chemical One was out over here. then this was still COOA used to be that was the library at that time. So this is the cover that

Barrett. This was the original focus, uh, presenter, who’s focusing. Oh, OK, that focus. Uh, uh, Julie Barrett, the Barrett Group is, this is what they came up with for the master plan, uh, 2004. Marty was on the steering committee at the time when it was concluded. And, you know, can sort of fill in, I can say

unequivocally that we never considered the cover. I, I really don’t like the sign with the rust on it and move to the alternate. So uh so and made it like circle so and made it like circle that’s this is what I, uh, we came up with as um As an

option and it, you know, it, it, um, It is very simple and, and, uh, I think, you know, fitting for uh For the master plan and it’s on a gray, it’s very light gray, uh, paper. And that’s a symbol that’s a blue surround on the seal in the lower

left-hand side and the words master plan are in dark blue and town of Hamilton in a dark gray. Um, and then the four color pictures on the right. And I put labels on them. I don’t know whether that, that can be removed. The labels on the on the images you mean? And

each image has, I can see that notification, the depot square on the top like that one, what, what did, uh, Depot Square and then what’s the next one? What’s the community center town hall and hall and then Carla and friend, and you, you have to guess which one is

Carla. So, so the horse or the child. I like them all. I like the whole format. I like it. My question would be why image 2? That’s a private organization, is it not? I was I was I would have to. OK, that’s a private corporation. I, I, I’m not sure

that I, you got, it’s a it doesn’t matter. You can take pictures of buildings from the street, trust me, I work, I’m not, I’m not arguing that. I just don’t think it’s appropriate for Hamilton I think it’s it’s it’s like it’s like it’s like I think it’s you know what I’m saying that’s one

of the nicest buildings in Hamilton. I would, I would put a picture of Patton Park there instead. It’s the, the firehouse, that’s not an architecture. I’m joking I’m joking I’m joking. Didn’t I think I think Judy Barrett had the pavilion in the Patton Park. Yeah, I could do that but the community house was on it’s not

as long as it’s not a Sherman tank. I don’t know. I, I, when I first started at the, one of the things the town really regulates or how how do you manage it sound? the history of it is one thing, you know, the historic. Sources. That’s the

top picture. That came from uh historic. It could be and then you have the, uh, preservation, you know, is, is the other thing that towns, and that’s the bottom one which is, you know, greenery, um, and preservation. Natural environment and, and that’s also the equestrian tradition here in town. That’s a fairly strong. Uh, town hall is the

civic center of the town. And then the community hall is the one is the social center in the downtown area, I think the library the library instead. Yes, it, because that’s a private people pay money, they pay money to use those facilities. OK. That’s a, that

is not like you can’t walk in there and just do what I’m, I’m, I’m OK resources you can’t sit in there library would be photogenic, I don’t I don’t think the picture is an endorsement. It just happens to be one of the nicest buildings in downtown Judy Barrett had a picture of it on the cover of a

town facility. I hear the concern and I think it would work just as well to have the library up there. That’s also community. Yeah, OK. It’s the only meeting space we have. There you go. Right now, uh, yeah, it wasn’t. I ran out one morning and took that picture and then because uh the others

I could, I could take off other documents. I just wanted to get one of that because in the previous one, The, if you look at the lower left, that’s where Judy Barrett got that one lower left hand corner. So I figured, well, You can, that’s not a

good shot, but I thought I could take a better one and uh. There it is, but that could be swapped out. I’m not. You know, if that’s what I’m thinking is if that’s a consensus because that’s another one. What in a in a state because they’re trying to do more community things there and just the

history of the patent. That would make a good, that would put two historic pictures. I don’t know, but they also are trying to use that for they do use that for community. They do like concerts and that I could do. I, I, I sort of like that

picture. I don’t think the library is a I should yeah, no, the patent homestead works. You think? Yeah. Yeah. And I think there are, I think there is a um I can look on the website, Hamilton website. They have, there is a. Pettton Park. Section I think on the website so I can pen Park patent

homestead, I just want to make sure we don’t want the, we don’t want the tank Yeah, OK, good suggestion. I’ll, uh, try to swap that out and then. Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought of that but the overall layout and the the You know, Mark is eager to

get this. Underway but uh and then I, what is the status of the rest of the uh. Just playing with the Microsoft Word, some minor hiccups, um, layout wise, but it’s all, I just have to have 4 hours to sort of dip up to this, um. But My, my goal

would be to have uh. The I’ll work with you Emile, but to have the final version for your next meeting. Well, this cover Ama is so much more sophisticated. It’s just not a, It was like 5 I mean it was like, oh my word, yeah, it’s actually the railroad tracks I wouldn’t have seen it, but the

tree was really, you know, if you were, well, that’s in Topsfield, I mean the most beautiful tree is the copper beach on Asbury. Copper no, that’s, uh, Nina Streeter’s old property, um. Actually, I, you know, the, the on Asbury if you’re going to Topsfeld Road, but that’s Topsfield, so yeah,

um, but you know, the tree just a tree. in snow could be anywhere. Um, so any other additional board business do you have anything for us, Mark, other than Um, No, just the, uh, The parks department is working on a site plan for, um, A, uh It’s not a gazebo. I’m trying to think of the right term.

It’s uh essentially a covered sort of um. Uh Pergola Pergola, uh, for the patent homestead property. Oh yeah. them for January. Here in So now I have a new word to look up. OK. I move that we adjourn second, uh, Jonathan. Bill I Amo Beth Darcy.

Darcy Dale I and Marie, hi. Has anybody seen this book? I hope