00:00:00,567 S1: All right. So it is 702. So I guess we'll start the meeting. I think we're recording. Yes. Anyways, so all of our job has been recorded. Um, so welcome to the Hamilton Zoning Board of Appeals meeting December 4th, 2024. Uh, we have not a whole lot going on. We have two, uh, meeting minutes to approve, and, um, well, three. But that was from this last month, which nothing was going on. Um, then I wanted to discuss something, but we also have our new, uh, town planning director with us, Mark Connors. Um, welcome. 00:00:40,367 S2: Thank you, thank you. 00:00:42,100 S1: And you, from what I understand, you will not be in our meetings. Or will you be each month? 00:00:50,901 S2: Uh. It depends. I think, uh, if you have applications, then, um, can be helpful. It can certainly pop on for these kind of brief meetings where you're not kind of doing administrative things. Probably. Probably not. 00:01:07,267 S1: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I wasn't sure because I know your roles a little bit different than Patrick's was. 00:01:13,467 S2: Yeah, yeah. Um, but we're certainly here to to assist. So if it's helpful to, to have me, I'm happy to hop on. 00:01:22,868 S1: Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. We're excited to have you should be good. We're a great group. 00:01:28,200 S2: Okay. 00:01:29,567 S1: Patrick said when we left. 00:01:33,067 S1: Um, so anyways, so for this evening, we have meeting minutes to approve, uh, from September 4th, uh, October 2nd and November 6th. The October 2nd and November 6th were just continuations of the September 4th. So, um, all of you guys are on, on tonight. You you if you've read them and you're okay and They're all good. You know, I'd like to entertain a motion to approve them. 00:02:03,467 S3: A motion to approve the minutes from September 4th. Yes. 00:02:10,367 S4: I Andy Phillips second. 00:02:12,801 S1: Okay. So those will be approved. And that's all the business. We have to approve those. Um, but one thing I wanted to talk about a bit and maybe not even talk about it, but kind of get the mind going on a little bit is the new Adu law that's coming up. Um, it's going to be active. Um, February 2nd. Um, and there's, you know, there's some buy right things of you're allowed to build a separate structure on the property of 900ft². Um, and some other things that, you know, kind of the government guideline. But we have our own By laws which will still be enforced. Um, my concern is that, uh, as these start maybe happening more is what? Because it's a separate. It can be a separate unit detached from the main house. Mhm. What are our parameters for controlling the size of it. Because I can you know we the last meeting actually I think it was the September 4th meeting. Uh I wasn't here for that one, but um, one came through and there was a lot of extra stuff added to the structure and makes it really big. And it was nice. It was beautifully designed and all that. But I think we need to kind of create some guidelines somehow to just control it. Um, you know, my, my fears are you get 900ft² of living space, which is, you know, air controlled space. But you might be able to throw in 400ft² of, um, conditioned space porches, uh, three season rooms, and all of a sudden, you have a very big structure on a property that, you know. 00:04:18,167 S1: Can handle it, but the neighbors might not like it if it just becomes too much. So I don't know if, you know, we also have, um, septic, you know, it has to go into the same septic system, I believe. Um, so the septic has to be approved. Um, the electrical feeds should, should be coming off the main house. Um, not have its own services. Um, because it's an accessory building. 00:04:48,767 S1: You know, and then the garage does a garage attached to it. Is that because it's unfinished and or even if it's unfinished or unconditioned, you know? All of a sudden, your house is. The structure was twice as big. Yeah. 00:05:04,267 S5: So so that one in particular did have a garage attached to it. And it was clear in the bylaw that non livable space didn't count toward toward the square footage requirement. But for instance, if somebody had a detached garage and they wanted to put an in-law apartment above it, we can't say no because there's all this garage space below it in the in an unattached garage. Right. I what I think we need is some clarity in the bylaw itself around what can and cannot be considered. Right. For instance, we could make the assumption that the point of the Hamilton zoning bylaw is to prohibit ADUs that look like houses. It doesn't say that anywhere. But we could. We could assume that it would be good if it said it somewhere, and in which case that would be sort of one of the parameters. Right? That if somebody wanted to build an accessory dwelling unit and an end a from scratch, basically on the property that the building would have to look like a outbuilding as opposed to looking like a, like a guest house on the property. Right? Then just use that as an example of one of the ways in which we could create more clarity around this, but I think it should be in the bylaw itself, which is like we have to conform to what's in the bylaw. If we want anything beyond that, it probably should be in the bylaw. 00:06:38,100 S3: That's going to require town vote. 00:06:41,467 S5: And absolutely, it's the zoning board. Excuse me, it's a planning board issue. 00:06:46,367 S1: It's a planning board issue. So it's gonna mark share with us. Um, but it's you know, what I would like to do is, is, you know, come up with ideas you guys can write them down, whatever. And then we can present them to the town or to Mark and you know. So this is what we see. You know what some of our concerns are when these things start happening. Um, how do we control it so it doesn't get out of hand? You know, my thought was you have 900ft² of living space. Yeah, you can have 20% of that, whatever that is. 200ft² of additional enclosed space that is not living, you know, just as an idea. Yeah. Well, then you can have a porch. You can have you can put a little garage in or a little storage space, you know, but it just sort of helps to control the sprawl of the design. 00:07:42,267 S3: Yeah. Ours was based off of the fact that they did not have an additional what was it? They did not have an additional accessory dwelling on the property. And that's what the garage was being utilized under, wasn't it? Something along that. Steve. 00:07:56,868 S5: Yeah. They had no accessory. Uh, not an accessory dwelling, but they had no accessory or anything of any kind. 00:08:03,868 S3: No accessory building. 00:08:05,601 S5: So they could have come before us and asked for a big barn, right? They could make. They could. They wouldn't even need to come before us. I believe they can just go to the to the, um, if they get a permit from the, uh, the building commissioner to build a barn, as long as it isn't violating the setbacks, they don't have to come to us for it. They could build. They could build a 1200 square foot barn of a 2000 square foot barn, and then put a 900 square foot adu inside of it six months later. 00:08:37,767 S1: Yes. 00:08:39,167 S5: And end up with the same exact thing that we approved on September 4th. 00:08:44,801 S3: Yeah. I think we're going to enter choppy waters on this one if we try, because we're. 00:08:53,067 S3: If it gets to us. I mean, I don't think it'll get to us with the now the laws passing, I think the zoning board will just start saying, yep, this is okay. Yep. That's what the law says. I think it'll only get to us if there's conflict with the setbacks or the nonconforming structures that we usually get. 00:09:12,100 S5: Or what I will say is neighbors, right? So if we get if we. 00:09:16,667 S1: Get. 00:09:17,400 S5: 2 or 3 neighbors who do not want it, we can absolutely say so. First of all, there's two things we have. We have latitude. We do have broad latitude over keeping in the in the spirit of the neighborhood. Right. Keeping within the the design of the neighborhood within so that it doesn't look like it's out of place. So we can we can use that, we can use broad latitude on that. And we also can have broad latitude when it comes to community disagreement. Right. So if there are a number of people for the whole neighborhood, or even just 2 or 3 people in the neighborhood, come to a meeting and say, we don't like this thing. That's more than enough. 00:09:56,167 S1: But the thing is, if they are within the guidelines in the state law now, they by right can do it. As long as they're not, you know. Yep. As long as they're not tripping the bylaws that. And that's where I kind of want to be able to have a little bit more control on that somehow, if we can. I don't know if we can. 00:10:15,767 S5: Well, I'm not I'm, I'm, I'm I don't think we do up unto a point. Right. What I'm unclear on is if what at what point does the building commissioner look at a plan and say, this is not in keeping. This goes beyond the scope of what the state law allows, and it triggers, um, a zoning Board of Appeals review. 00:10:36,767 S1: Right. 00:10:37,601 S5: Right. I think that's one thing that we need to figure out what that is. And then we can draw some, some, um, some guidelines around that. Right. Um, and I don't know if that's if there is, uh, if there are ways in which our bylaw can not override, but kind of create adjacent parameters, right? Like the example I used before. Right. It can't look like a guest house. It has to look like an accessory unit or an accessory, um, structure. Um, in order to be approved, I don't I don't personally don't know if that passes. That's maybe a question for Cape Law, right? I don't know if that passes muster with the with the state law. 00:11:16,200 S1: Yeah. And it does, you know, become a little bit how you see it, how you see the design, you know. 00:11:24,767 S5: Well, that's that's what we're here for, right? We're the judges of whether it's a guest house or whether it looks like a guest house or whether it looks like an accessory. Uh, structure. 00:11:34,300 S2: The planning board has been talking about the need to update the ordinance, because obviously now it conflicts with the new state law because it requires the special permit. Um, so it is a chance to kind of look at the, the whole section of the bylaw and update it. Um, we were waiting on the state because the state says it's going to issue regulations for ad use that towns have to follow. Um, but unfortunately, they're not in a big hurry to do that. So I think we're going to have to update the towns by law, probably without the benefit of that, because it's not looking like it's going to come anytime soon. 00:12:11,767 S3: Um, have we seen have. Do you guys have access to what the state is proposing that we could work off of? 00:12:17,868 S2: They've issued some guidelines, but they're they're saying that they're issued regulations, but it's not going to be in time for February. And, um, I think we're aiming to have something, at least for the Spring town meeting, because even if we do April, there's still going to be kind of a little gap there between February and April. I think it's short enough of a gap that I don't think it'll cause too many hiccups. But, um, I did work in New Hampshire before. New Hampshire has kind of a similar Adu law where you have to allow ADUs. Um, and it worked for, for the most part, worked pretty well. I'd say that the issues you run into are garages. So if there's a garage already on the property and you build the second garage with 80, you sort of creates that impression of the second house where you're trying to avoid that. You want you want to look accessory. Um, so yeah, we passed a, a zoning change where you can't have if you already have a garage, you can't have a second garage for the Adu or a pool or things like that that are, you know, kind of larger scale, um, can't be in the front yard, has to be in the backyard or the side yard, uh, things like that. 00:13:27,100 S5: So, um, yeah, I'm not sure we have we don't have that in our, in our bylaw either, because this September 4th, one was in the side yard. Yeah. 00:13:35,601 S2: Okay. 00:13:36,300 S3: I mean, I'm definitely with Bruce on, like, you know, they gotta tie their power into the existing house. Can't have its own, um, their water should probably be tied in. Also, the septic has to meet the criteria if you're going to put, you know, two if it's, you know, two parents, you know sceptic better meet muster because you're not going to get to do a new septic system because now it's a separate system altogether. Um, you know, the garage one is definitely a good idea. But again, we still run into the if they don't have, you know, a shed or something, they're going to just make it anyway. So then do we play the the cat and mouse game with people. So that would definitely have to be very clear. Language that is like a garage is considered where you put your vehicle or any vehicle for that matter. 00:14:28,367 S6: Most likely not. 00:14:29,901 S3: Um. 00:14:30,868 S6: Yeah. 00:14:31,667 S3: Yeah. I mean, no, I would say no, obviously no digging. Where would we go with like concrete slabs? Because I know a lot of these know a lot of these ADUs are you can put them on raised platforms. So you're not actually even putting down a concrete slab that comes becomes question also because then if the parents pass away, you can then just remove the structure immediately. So do we bring you up? 00:14:55,767 S5: You're saying you're and you want to encourage making them more transient. 00:14:59,567 S3: Yeah. So you know. 00:15:04,200 S1: That's always it's a high high cost for doing that to build a whole structure. 00:15:09,367 S3: And then well that's what I'm saying is that if, if, if the people if it's truly a, you know, in-law apartment and let's say your in-laws are in their 70s and it's a really nice one. 00:15:21,801 S6: And they're like, hey, what's going on? They want we're just going, oh, they're pros. 00:15:28,901 S5: And then I mean, I'm looking at the the Massachusetts this. Oh, Dave, we missed most of what you said. You froze there for a second. 00:15:36,100 S3: So what do we do when we get to that point where, okay, the in-laws are the in-laws have passed away, and now we have this apartment. Now, what are they doing with the apartment? Do we fall under the fact that we have a housing crisis at that point? Is that going to become a rental property? Should it have to be? 00:15:54,467 S1: That's what that's what it becomes is because. Because the adu. Yeah I right. They can just rent it out. We don't have any say on how that's used. I mean, we have in the past, you know where where they did the accessory dwelling and then we we were supposed to go check it every couple of years or every year to see that it's still being used as the in-law. And then once. 00:16:15,267 S6: It's. 00:16:16,100 S1: Once they move on. You come in, you pull out the kitchen and the, you know, that space becomes part of the house again, but that the section of the of the bylaws going to go away now. 00:16:27,968 S5: Yeah. The state law overrides that. And in fact, our bylaw doesn't even say that. Our bylaw doesn't say anything about family. It says providing reasonable rental properties to, uh, like, you know, older homeowners that want to stay in their home. They can build an accessory dwelling so they get some rental income. In fact, that was one of the one of the problems. That was probably one of the strongest arguments in our September 4th meeting was that it doesn't say anything about about having in-laws stay there, that they weren't meeting the criteria of the bylaw because they weren't using it as a income property. 00:17:06,567 S3: Yeah. So that's so that's what we're going to. So that's what we're going to be hit with then. I mean, I, I totally agree what Bruce is proposing, but the the law is going to supersede our any decision we tried to in controlling this. And then we're going to be hitting we're going to be hitting that wall. Steve, as you said, we can keep to the conforming, the appearance of the town and making it look nice. But until we have proper guidance where, you know, we could say one thing and then the state could say another, and then, you know, we're all going to be back in this spot and then the town's going to be dealing with it. 00:17:46,667 S5: Yeah. 00:17:46,901 S1: Well, eventually. Sorry. I think, uh, you know, if we did something like a a percentage above and beyond a 900ft². 00:17:56,567 S5: Um, yeah. 00:17:57,767 S1: Different space. However you'd like to use it. You know, it looks. 00:18:01,467 S5: It looks like the state law does allow us to impose overall size restrictions. That's what it looks like just from my reading. But again, this isn't something we can solve by ourselves, right? We need to work with the planning board, and we also need the help. I think of the of town council, um, to strip. But I do agree with you, Bruce. We could brainstorm some ideas. Uh, having some experience encountering these things that we can bring to, um. 00:18:27,701 S3: Like, I could argue to work. I could see someone saying a carport, but not a enclosed garage, like a just a cover for the car. Because if you're elderly, you got to walk out to your car if it's covered in snow or ice. You got that? 00:18:39,567 S5: But but again, Dave, that brings up the problem. If there's not already a garage on the property and you have a right to a garage and you have a right to add to you. There's nothing that says they can't be in the same structure. 00:18:48,567 S3: Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. If we if they if we're talking to you that say there's a garage already, if they want to do like a overhanging carport, not a full on garage, just an overhang. Like that's not something I'd be opposed to because you're just putting a basically a larger roof over the area. It's not enclosed. It's not. 00:19:10,467 S1: Well, that that can be a Zeba decision. You look at it and, you know, it looks, um, you know, maybe, maybe there's a statement in there that says, you know, if you have a two car garage, you can't add another garage onto the Adu. This is a if it's a if it's a separate dwelling. 00:19:35,567 S3: Like I would back you on that moving forward. If, if they don't have the argument for the shed or whatever, because that's going to come up every time now. 00:19:45,467 S5: Garage spaces are regulated by a different part of the bylaw, too. I forget what it is. I can't remember if it's two or if it's three, but there's a definite cap and if you want more, you have to come to us. 00:19:55,667 S1: Yeah, I think it's three. 00:19:56,968 S3: All right. So we could. So I think that would be our brainstorming we get with zoning board. We figure out where we can intersect to prevent it from getting out of control from there. 00:20:11,000 S6: Yeah. 00:20:11,767 S7: Bruce, have you talked to anyone on in Wenham as per two different zoning boards about this as well? 00:20:19,567 S1: I have not. No, no, it'd be a good idea to do that. Let's see what they're. 00:20:23,000 S3: Yeah, maybe we should all just get a sit down with both. With both sections. Because. 00:20:29,167 S7: Or individually. I think it's complicated. Also, Manchester's Manchester is a good, uh, neighboring town as well. 00:20:38,367 S3: We have to make sure we're not violating open meeting laws. If we all met, though. 00:20:42,100 S6: Yeah, right. Yeah. 00:20:43,167 S7: All right. 00:20:43,467 S6: That's my comment. 00:20:44,367 S1: More. Kind of. 00:20:46,501 S5: What do you do? Could just be you chatting with the chairs. Bruce. The zoning board's. 00:20:51,767 S1: Wants to see, you know, what their thoughts are, because they're probably in the same boat. We are just trying to figure it out before it becomes law. 00:21:00,300 S3: Oh, Mark, you're coming on board right when the fun starts. Yeah. 00:21:03,667 S1: Yeah, he's got a lot of fun ahead of him. Hey. 00:21:06,167 S5: He's he's lucky this isn't the start of, like, a 40 V project or something. 00:21:10,901 S7: Oh three. 00:21:13,267 S3: This is a little bad. 00:21:14,367 S2: Just because, um, every other town is kind of dealing with it. So you can sort of like you guys were saying. I think Middleton is having a special town meeting this month to talk about, um, both ADUs and the the three a zoning. 00:21:28,467 S5: So I should say a contentious 40 B project, regular 4040 B project on its own, wonderful, but particularly contentious ones like it's not one of the contentious. 00:21:42,300 S1: Who knows? Come back. 00:21:45,000 S3: Yeah. I'm on. I'm in the same. I'm on. I'm on your side, though, Bruce. I mean, it is a it's definitely something we got to look at. It's definitely something to be prepared for. And, you know. 00:21:53,801 S1: Just any ideas, you know, write them down, send them off. We can kind of create a list and say this is what we see as a problem. Then the planning board can address it however they, you know, deem necessary. 00:22:08,000 S3: Luckily we have a really good planning board. 00:22:10,701 S7: Bruce is, um, Rosemary our. 00:22:16,801 S1: Oh, yeah. She's our liaison. 00:22:18,767 S7: Is that is would it be an interesting conversation for you to chat with her? Yeah, when I'm. 00:22:24,000 S6: Sitting. 00:22:24,501 S7: With her on, uh. 00:22:29,067 S7: What? What her thoughts and potential overall board thoughts could be. 00:22:36,400 S1: Yeah. No, I definitely could do that. And obviously I can talk to Mark, too. And. 00:22:41,167 S6: Because the. 00:22:43,868 S2: Planning board has been talking about it first so I can. The next time it's on the agenda, I can invite. 00:22:48,467 S6: Um. 00:22:49,267 S2: Someone from the CVA to be there or could even do like a joint meeting if you wanted to. 00:22:54,367 S1: Yeah, that'd be good. That's all for that. 00:22:58,167 S5: Okay. 00:22:59,267 S1: Okay, so that's, uh, that's our homework for the month. Well, actually, we don't we probably won't have a meeting next month. We don't have anything on the docket for us. So, um. 00:23:10,801 S1: I hope we won't have meeting minutes to approve for this meeting, since we didn't have any, um, projects in front of us. So, um, you know, I guess would be good is just to write down some ideas and send them to me, and then I can package them all together and send them off to. 00:23:29,300 S6: The. 00:23:29,601 S1: Planning department, and, and, you know, go from there. And if we want to, if we want to meet next month, we could do that. I, I don't know if we can do that now because I think we have a whole month we'd have to meet the next month, January. 00:23:43,467 S6: We want to. 00:23:44,000 S1: Discuss it further if we want it to. 00:23:48,100 S1: We come up with this one. 00:23:50,100 S2: It probably won't be until January at least anyway. 00:23:52,801 S1: Oh, not January, February. 00:23:54,667 S2: February. 00:23:55,100 S1: Okay, we're we're a month now. Um, between almost a month between any project submittals to the VBA and, and, uh, actually being able to be in front of the CBA application deadline for it that way. Um. 00:24:15,868 S1: Yeah. So, uh, anybody else have anything else to say or come. 00:24:20,367 S3: In to adjourn? 00:24:21,467 S6: No. 00:24:22,400 S7: I second the motion. 00:24:24,100 S1: I like it. All right. 00:24:25,567 S5: Roll call. Vote. Steven derosier I. 00:24:29,000 S7: Andy Philip I. 00:24:32,367 S1: Bruce Gingerich I meeting adjourned. All right. 00:24:37,501 S7: See you guys. 00:24:39,000 S6: Bye bye.