It is some. already. It is 7:06 p.m. um on March 12th and I’m calling the um Hamilton Planning Board meeting to order. Uh, the meeting is being recorded by HWKM. Uh I’ll begin by taking roles, so when I call your name, would you please indicate that you’re present? Pat Norton President Jonathan Poor Jonathan. Bill Wheaton

that’s her. Present Darcy Dale. Darcy Dale present. Hamil Dahlquist, Emil Dahlquist present and Marie Crouch present, and I note that uh our two associate members, Matt Hammill and Jeff Austin are not present. I know Matt reached out and indicated that he had a conflict. So, uh, the first item on our agenda which should

only take a few minutes, um, or the review and vote on minutes, uh, is there any discussion with respect to the minutes I did receive, um, some edits from Darcy and I have um. A number of very minor corrections to the minutes and uh. Unless anyone has any additional corrections or

matters that they want to discuss, uh, we could entertain a vote, but I did have one question. So, uh, with respect to the minutes of February 4th, 2025. Uh, I wasn’t able to double check this, but I know we took a boat about transmitting an email to Joe, uh. Uh, about the master plan

and engaging uh a graphic designer to finish it, but my recollection is that um Mark, you indicated that we wait on that, uh, until you had an opportunity to work with AMO and maybe get it resolved. Is that correct? I think so, yep. So that’s not reflected in the minutes, so, um, and I That was

my recollection. I Tried to find where that conversation was, um, in the YouTube video, but I didn’t have time to do it and so um. I think maybe we better hold um hold the minutes from February 4th and actually find what transpired, uh, and include that, um, and so is there any more discussion about.

The minutes. Yes, I have a substantive, um, correction to make, uh, under the, the February 4th, 2025. Item 2, land use application for the, um, The 650 Asbury Street. Um, the board asked some specific questions about the plans regarding water flows. I don’t think that adequately captures

the issue there. So I’d just like to correct that, um, I don’t know whether you want me to write something or say it and then I’ll write it as a follow up, but I’ll just to say it, the the concern was, um, to look at and examine the roof runoff and hillside runoff as it affected the building

structure for the purpose. of managing occupants safety and the, uh, durability of the building and then if they installed a gutter system to manage that. Both uh roof gutter and a ground gutter system to make sure that if people were walking off the hillside into the building,

that there was safety in the walking from one place to the other. Those were the points and those were, I think, very critical points and missing. Right, um. So I think we need to revisit the February 4th minutes at our next meeting. So I’ll wrap something up, yeah,

if you forward that and I will, I’ll take the laboring war on the February 4th minutes and uh try and find the discussion where we, uh, Um Uh Chose not to send that email because uh when I read the minutes I thought to myself, I never sent that email. And then I remembered maybe we, we didn’t

have to. How about the other two sets of the other sets of minutes. That’s fine. I have no issues. I don’t have any issues either. OK. So, I will entertain a motion to approve uh the minutes for October 3rd, 2023 in October 17, 2023. I move that we vote, um, to approve the minutes from

October 3rd and October 17, 2023 with um no edits. No, there are edits the edits they’re relatively minor minor edits. Do I have a second? That OK, so when I call your name, please indicate that you approved the minutes for those 2 October dates. Pat Norton. Jonathan Poor Jonathan Pom Emilquist, Darcy Dale.

Darcy Dale, I Beth her I. Bill Wheaton. Wheaton and Marie crouch E. So I can um provide those minutes to mark with my corrections. that I will hold these somewhere so that I don’t lose it. OK So The next item on our agenda is the Uh Public notice of the various bylaw amendments that the, uh,

planning board has proposed. Now earlier today, I sent everyone a memorandum. Uh, I’m sorry, I apologize. An email. And I’ll, I’ll give you the backstory. So yesterday, Mark Connor’s and I together with Corinne Cale met. To Review both the Public notice, the warrant. And our bylaws in light of This document, which is the town of Hamilton zoning

bylaw, which she has now, um, Uh, confirmed is the accurate. Zoning bylaw. So the zoning by law that we initially used, which was the one that appeared on the town. Website It was remarkably inaccurate. And when we started work on the bylaws, we got the, I think the 2016 bylaws and maybe another

version, but I was stunned to see in in this. What I hope to be final version material that I had never even seen before. So. Uh, with that said, I will just attempt to read you. The issues with the Notice of the public hearing. And Corinne. To her credit has been in communication with the attorney

general’s office and has kept them abreast of the issues that the town has been confronting with um. The integrity of its bylaw. And so She received an email. Today From, uh, the person that she’s been engaging with that if we go over the. Issues with the notice of public hearing that we can go

forward with our proposed bylaw amendments with the exceptions of the amendments to 4.0. So, Uh With respect to the table of use regulations. We have amended the table of use regulations and, and, and if you all can, um, Refer to The, um Revised memorandum that I prepared. Um I myself They’re

all dated March 13th. So if you look at the um Revisions to section 3.0. You will see the revised table of use regulations. Big one. Including marijuana establishment. That’s in the table of use regulations that doesn’t appear in any of the versions of the bylaw I had previously seen, but in the

notice. Uh, we inadvertently referred to um. The uh Conversion for temporary living area as section 3.5 when in fact it’s section 3.4. Now the Attorney General’s, uh, representative indicated that that typo uh should not. Compromise uh consideration of. It’s by law amendment. Because it is a typo. We’re intending

to eliminate section 3.5, uh, uh, excuse me, 3.4, which is. In the table of use regulations referred to as conversion or temporary living and in the section itself it’s referred to conversion for temporary additional living area, but in any event, that’s being eliminated because if you recall, uh, Rich Maloney indicated that it had never

been used, so I don’t think that is any way, shape or form, uh, a substantive impediment to uh deleting section 3.4. Um Then, um, with respect to the temporary signage. Uh Proposed amendment to the bylaw, there were two issues with that. One, in the, um, Public notice. The numbers were transposed so in

the notice it said 6.5.3.4 in the actual subsection is section 6.3.5.4. But the caption. is correct. So again, according to the attorney general’s representative, this is not uh a deficiency that would uh prohibit the the uh proposed amendment to being presented to the citizens at the town meeting. The other, the only other issue with

respect to our proposed bylaw amendment with respect to temporary signage is that we included a second sentence. Uh, that had been deleted. So the first sentence is the the uh One in which the amendment appears and the second sentence just didn’t exist. We had worked from a, a bad version of

the bylaw, but again, I don’t think that’s an impediment to going forward with the Amendment to the temporary son it’s uh section because it, it really is implementing First Amendment rights, it’s important that we do that. Um, and then in, in. Several, um. In two other instances, uh, The Section 10.6, the site plan

review. proposed amendment we referred to definitions. Well, the definitions had actually, um, Been, been uh included so we don’t have to amend any definitions, uh, in conjunction with Section 10.6 and similarly, we don’t have to. Um, consider any definitions with respect to, um. the inclusionary housing bylaws section 8.3.3. But we did reorganize those.

Definitions, I believe. So, uh, we’ll have to check that. Um, but, uh Uh, Robin pointed out as well with respect to the inclusionary housing bylaw that, uh, the, the, um, Amendment I just pulled that up. find it. The amendment to one particular section. Um, Section 8.3.5. 3 Um, that’s a renumbered section.

Uh, we amended section 8.3.5.3 and and and and. It This is where There’s provisions for providing affordable housing units. There are 3 listed, so when we uh sent out the uh notice uh. Oh The first sense was not in place so I made that correction, uh, I think it was clear that we were talking

about a uh an equivalent fee in lieu and so it was just the first sentence. I think when I type this up, I just Really, it was just a scrivener’s error. I, I saw an equivalent fee in lieu and, and, and just didn’t type it twice. Uh, so I don’t think

that’s a serious impediment because it’s quite clear that we were, uh, Amending that subsection, uh. To uh Clear up any ambiguity is how as to how the fee was calculated. So I think with that said, um, I have, um, address the issues. That, uh We uh made uh or resulted from the typographical

errors in the notice of public hearing. And I think that um. We have complied with what the attorney general’s representative indicated that we should do and that is to explain or announce that there are updated or different bylaw section numbers, uh, that, that are now correct and emphasize

that the subject matter is in fact correct. uh, would you all agree with that? Yes. And then of course now that we have recognized that we have these issues, we have to make sure that all the corrections then are uh Follow and uh are are on

the warrant. Uh, so, so I think, I think we’ve covered that. Now, Robin, uh, do you want to weigh in on any of that? Do you agree with uh my uh analysis there. No, no comment on that. I have a couple of questions. I don’t

know if this is the. or more wait till we get into. Is, do you have questions about the process or specific bylaws. about something no issues with anything you said. I think it’s, it’s clear because that’s um. titles of the headings are what we deleted, I think that’s fine.

And if you had uh Robin get up and speak into the microphone so this gets recorded. If you had obtained a copy of the proposed changes, it would have been clear as well and and the public notice said that the the actual bylaws themselves could be are available um at the um planning director’s office.

No, no, no questions of what you said or no issues with what I have one question in when you were first commenting, you said you thought there was an issue. With the public notice as to section 4. Yes, so we actually uh proposed amendments to 2. Parts of section 4. And so we’re just taking them, um.

Off the, um, uh, warrant. Because the notice in reference 424. Yeah, didn’t reference both sections of uh of section 4 you’re gonna pull that article and put it on, yeah, yes. So, um, I suppose we could go through each of the um Oh, I, I know one more thing, on the warrant, Uh The warrant

requires a brief summary of the article. And uh I know in preparing memorandum that Would that for the select board that they had at their meeting on Monday I did provide summaries, but they were not brief. So my question is, uh, who prepares the quote unquote brief summary and if that’s the planning

board, we have some work to do. It’s hard to summarize changes significant changes like to section 3, there are a lot of changes. I think, um, I would work with someone, probably you, Marie, uh, with the planning board, uh, but when we do the public hearing notice, we try

to include a brief summary of each amendment, so, OK. Example for the 80U bila changed the last two sentences. The purpose of this amendment is to permit accessory dwelling units by right on single family residential properties. subject to certain requirements permit accessory dwelling units larger than 900 square feet by special permit only. To eliminate

obsolete sections of the bylaw. This amendment is necessitated in part by the state’s passage of the Affordable Homes Act. You might start with that last part. That’s what triggered it all, you know what I mean? I think it’s important. To start with You know, it wasn’t Our desire or Independent initiative to drive this change.

It was a a mandate that we’re now adopting and making sure we comply with. So it’s a good way I think to bring that to the top. might be uh helpful. Right, right. Exercise right. Is that my only some people aren’t going to read everything, so that’s like the net of the net.

Got it. OK, so that’s good, Mike. Yeah, we can work together on that and um someone has to look at the numbers because throughout my entire career. I have a remarkable ability to transpose numbers and. Not pick up on the fact that their mistakes in numbers. I don’t know why that is. Maybe I have, you know, some

recessive dyslexic selective and it’s just something that I’ve always struggled with, you know, so I will look at a series of numbers section 6.5.3 and I, I won’t, it won’t register with me that that was a typo. So, uh, Mark and I can, can work together and, and make those as succinct as possible

with, you know, a. reference that you’ve got to look at the, you’ve got to look at the appendix to see the real changes and and that that goes with every warrant article, but in particular when, when you’re making as many changes as we are that you just can’t, if we can’t make it too long of the

warrant would be. Really long. OK, so, um, I know, uh, certain people are here with respect to the groundwater protection overlay district Amendment, so why don’t we start with that? Uh Marie, I believe you have to open the public hearing. Oh Uh, so thank you, Rick, uh, Mark, um, would you read the public

hearing notice. Sure, it’s a little lengthy, but I’ll. uh go through it. Notice is hereby provided that the Hamilton Planning Board will conduct a public hearing pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 40A, Section 5 for consideration of the following proposed amendments, the Hamilton zoning bylaw. The public hearing will be held on Wednesday, March 12,

2025 at 7 p.m. in the main room of the Hamilton Wyndham Public Library. This hearing will be held in person with Zoom electronic login access prior as a courtesy meeting will not be terminated in the event that technological issues disrupt the Zoom broadcast. The Zoom meeting log information will be included on the meeting planning board agenda.

Members of the public are invited to be heard regarding the following proposed zoning by all amendments under consideration by the planning board. First one to amend section 3.12 table of use regulations to strike accessory apartment as a use and accessory dwelling unit as a permitted use and add large accessory dwelling unit as permitted by special permit by

the planning board only. To delete I’ll note this was incorrect in the notice section 3.5 that should have been section 3.4. Conversion for temporary living area in its entirety. amend section 3.6 accessory apartment by striking the section in its entirety, replacing it with a new section accessory dwelling unit. To amend Section 11 definitions to

add new definitions specific to research dwelling units. The purpose of this amendment is to permit accessory dwelling units by right on single-family residential properties, subject to certain requirements permit accessory dwelling units larger than 900 square feet by a special permit only to eliminate obsolete sections of the bylaw. This amendment is

necessitated in part by the state’s passage of the Affordable Homes Act. The Second Amendment to amend Section 4.12 table of dimensional requirements, the notice should have also uh Uh Uh, reference section 4.24. To clarify the minimum front yard requirement and to clarify the developments in the business district are subject to the

site plan review by the planning board. Section The notice was incorrect. It says section 6.534, it should have said section 35, 3.54 temporary signage to clarify the requirements governing temporary signage in Section 11 definitions to add definitions for gross for business. And gross residential. This amendment was recommended by the Hamilton Building commissioner to add greater

greater clarity to the zoning bylaw to eliminate obsolete references in the bylaw. Third Amendment to amend section 8.3 inclusionary housing by amending certain subsections to clarify and update the town’s requirements related to the provision of affordable housing, particularly the calculation of the number of mandatory units in section 8.34. In the

calculation of the equivalent fee in lieu of units in section 8.35 data provision providing that affordable units provided approved under the bylaw will be deed restricted in perpetuity in section 8.394. To eliminate obsolete references in this section of the bylaw. And to amend section 11.0 definitions. Uh, by moving the

definition to an area median income that it appears under inclusionary housing, although as Martin noted that that part of the amendment is not no longer necessary. The 4th 1 to amend section 9.1 Groundwater protection overlay District, Section 9.14 dimensional requirements to change the requirement for a minimum 80,000 square foot lot area to

require a minimum of 80,000 square feet per dwelling unit. The purpose of this amendment is to reduce development within proximity of drinking water supplies and recharge areas. And the 5th 1 to amend section 10.6 site plan review. By striking that section in its entirety and replacing it with

a new section under the same title to amend Section 11 definitions to clarify the definition of site plan review. Although, as Marie noted, that is not necessarily any longer. The purpose of this amendment is to update and clarify the town’s requirements for site review applications. Full text of the pro zoning amendments may be reviewed at the town

clerk’s office located at Paton Homestead, 650 Asbury Street in Hamilton during regular business hours or by visiting the Hamilton Planning Board website. Yeah. And uh link is provided. Thanks, Rick. OK, so with that out of the way, um, we will consider the change to the um. Groundwater protection over Lake District. Thank you, uh, Mark Johnson, 6th Patton

Drive, uh, Hamilton, um. First of all, thank you guys for taking on all these rewrites of the bylaws. They are not easy. They are detailed. They just take the soul out of you when you’re dealing on all sorts of things that are just not fun, even if it’s not of your doing, like a state mandate, someone’s

got to do it. Thank you for stepping up and doing it. It’s really, really, really important. Um, and then just sliding away from just because um uh there was a comment Jonathan made about um uh the minutes for for the pavilion, um, DPW director at the last meeting, um, recommended that

we not have a concrete slab for the pavilion. that you approved for the site plan review. He recommended going to a highly packed gravel base easier, better for flow a water will drain off it easier. There were, there were some reasons for it. Um, so, I just want to give you a heads up that it, it’s not

the slippery slab that you were initially really concerned about, or at least that’s what’s going out to bid. We’ll see what comes back. Now on the, on the real topic, um, we spent a lot of time, you know, years ago after the 2002 master plan, and then, uh, we spent a few years, 2004, 2006, really in

the trenches revising our bylaws to try to implement all the things that the master plan had called for, whether it was inclusion of housing, commercial overlay districts, and so on each of the pieces and along the way, we realized that some formulas dealt with more density. And when we dealt

with more density, we were trying to figure out how do we do that in a septic, in a, in a, in an area that only has septic and has no intention of doing sewer and we were thinking of do we, and there was a whole separate issue to sort of look,

we do sewer downtown and only downtown and that, that didn’t work out for a bunch of reasons. But during that process, um, we spoke extensively about building lot versus dwelling unit in our meetings as we talked through what would qualify, what wouldn’t qualify, and so. I think it is entirely in the purview of this planning

board to review GPRD. In fact, I would love for it to review GPRD much more comprehensively, um, I think the risk for watershed is everything that’s happening along the Miles River, right, we have, um, you know, that’s where our water is being piped from, not so much Ipswich anymore, uh, Ipswich River

anymore. We shut down the patent well, um, but the, the risk is in that watershed, and that’s where we have a ton of people putting chemicals onto their lawns. We’ve got a golf course. We’ve got all sorts. things that are much greater risk to our watershed, um, that

I think are fair game to address if we want to revise the GPOD, um, so I think the, um, I think citizens will follow you, you know, if you say change the GPOD for these reasons, people will rah rah behind you and maybe you’ll have some some fights, but I think a well rationed reason

for changing it makes sense. I think the what struck me, and I apologize for the tone of my email to you is. The fact that it was um ambiguity, uncertainty and ambiguity sort of came up a couple of times in the memo advancing it, and I understand where that came from, but that’s not. It when we were

implementing the GPOD and talking about our different um sub change by lot changes that we adopted. There was no ambiguity or uncertainty. There is now. You know, you may have uncertainty on it maybe with new lens you’re looking at them differently that’s all fine, but I don’t think that’s the reason for changing the bylaw.

I think the reason for changing the GPRD bylaw is you see something that’s flawed, there’s a risk to a watershed, and you want to fix it. You make the case this is what’s flawed, this is how it’s fixed, and that’s there. I, I don’t think fixing building up for um dwelling unit is enough of a

reason. To fix and protect our watershed, it is a it is an anti-development stage is basically sort of cuts down the pools of properties that could qualify for some of our special permits, um, and. That may be a good goal, and it’s within your purview to amend our bylaws to make more, to make development

more tight. That’s also in it completely in your control, um, and something that the community might embrace, but it’s not one’s not complicated to the other. So I would highly recommend that you, um, adopt, you know, pull the GPOD change for now, and then maybe in the fall, you know, make, make the

point and the case as to why you want to change the GPA. What is d ang er ous or what is not safe to a watershed now about it, and then if dwelling unit is the answer, great, but I, I, I don’t think it is, and I, and so that’s, that’s my

point. And, and I, you know, I, I trust you guys to come up with whatever the right answer is. Well, I appreciate your comments and, and I, I will say that we have talked about amending the entire GPOD, but of course we, we didn’t have the wherewithal to do it uh in the. I’m, uh, that we started

looking at these bylaws because I know at one point Jonathan, I think it was Jonathan mentioned there, there’s a lot of advancement in water wastewater treatment systems and, and I, I think Pat Norton can speak to that, uh, but we did want to take some steps immediately to try and uh address uh Uh, this

issue, so I, I don’t know what I’m gonna, I’d like to go back a little bit for a little more context, but I do appreciate your comments and I agree with the points that, um, the entire bylaw should be revisited and it should be revisited in a methodical way using um latest technology, proper consultants,

so that it’s, it’s vetted in a way that meets contemporary needs and technology. Absolutely agreed. And what’s interesting here is the theme of most of these bylaw corrections other than things that are that are mandated by the state are kind of Uh, errors or inadvertent errors and I just like to go through a

little bit of the history of this, and My perception is this falls in that same category. So, here we go. So, um, I Had a colleague and many of you may have known him, Dave Thompson prominent engineer in town, prominent in town activities. And his company Halley Aldridge did the original GPOD study and

developed the, the form for the bylaw. On. So Dave was very intimately involved in this and, and, uh, um. Investing in it. And I spent a good deal of time with him. Before he passed and uh uh he shared with me quite a few documents around this, and

What’s I think unfortunate is the term ambiguity came up. In past discussions and came up in this discussion, I think that’s the wrong word. Um There was quite a bit of discussion and back and forth with attorneys during proposals for um, for other projects where They were trying to take the existing

wording in the bylaw, and um, try to understand how it applied to cluster housing versus single family dwellings, and The fact that it was stated as building lot. Was wrestled with quite a bit and it Finally it was agreed upon that that wording is unambiguous. It’s building lot, period. No matter

how many buildings dwelling units you put on it’s building what unambiguous. However, this is the, this is the key part. Um, I unfortunately don’t have all the documents. I have some of the documents, but I don’t have the most key document, which is that Originally, the way the bylaw was drafted is it

was per dwelling unit. And I have a memo here from Dave, dated 338-15, that says in May of 1990, the GPOD was apparently amended to specify a minimum lot size of 8,000 80,000 square feet per building lot. He wasn’t quite sure how it was done or why it was done, but he had the bread crumb

trail to see, OK, prior to that, it was per Per, um Dwelling unit and after that it was per building lots. So somehow it got changed in there, whether it was an error, maybe somebody did it, don’t know he didn’t know. I did a little bit of

digging. I couldn’t figure it out. I don’t have a copy of that original bylaw. I’m sure it could be dug up. Um, but then he just sat and explained to me the basic principles, which is, it’s essentially about the density of septage, you know, per acre, and That Her building lot makes perfect

sense when you’re talking about single family res, you know, residential zones, but as soon as you get into cluster housing, the whole concept of per lot becomes in a sense, counterintuitive from an engineering standpoint. So, again, totally agree that this whole bylaw needs to be revised. I’m just, if I may, just to help the timeline, um, GPOD

came in in 1985. Uh, 1985 we had single family homes only, um, and we had more instances of violating that like Winthrop school was built single family home, you know, so there are times when, when we didn’t follow exactly that, but pretty much all residential housing, um, was single-family homes.

So in 19 by 19 90, we’d already had a couple of big subdivisions Woodland Mead and others, um, where they struggled with building lot but there was no intent of anything other than single family homes there. Um, the cluster housing discussion didn’t start till 2012. Um, so we, you know, when

we were coming out of the master plan, we said, oh, it would be nice to have cluster housing, but it was so far down the implementation list that we were trying to deal with senior housing and everything else. So 2005, 200 6 all the way through 2008, we had two senior housing bylaws that were rejected by

the citizens and then we, it was the 3rd pass that happened and then we didn’t even try to do cluster housing until, you know, early teens. So long after the building lot had been the place, so it wasn’t as though there was a concept of cluster housing that people were even thinking of as a

suitable definition. The only condos in town with the with the 7, apartments on, uh, Willow Street. Willow. Willow and Asbury we had whatever that whatever number of condos there was that was that was the only condos in town other than that, it was more accessory units, um, so I’m not suggesting motive here. Uh, or anything like that.

I’m just saying, according to this memo, that’s when it was changed, and he showed me the documents. I just don’t have copies of them and he’s passed since then. So, in any event, I agree 100% that the best the best action here would be to revisit the entire bylaw systemically agreed 100%.

And As a planning board we’re concerned that This is just counterintuitive from an engineering point of view, um, we’re not engineers, I’m not an engineer, uh, but this kind of came from the horse’s mouth here. So for each apartment, when you think of density, the GPOD, the way it’s written now,

if it’s on per dwelling unit, if you want to have 5 condos. You’d need 10 acres of land. I, I understand, so I mean it’s just, you know, from a, from a logical perspective, it actually works the other direction. You wouldn’t when you’re intentionally choosing to put in place a bylaw to

allow density because we might want density for market apartments for whatever reason, for the whole, all the changes that you’re doing to the bylaw actually allow a little bit more density on the margin than than single family homes anyway, um, but all of those, you know, imagine some of the, the ADUs

that are now in the GPOD. They would not qualify. Because the GPD is an override you have someone do an accessory apartment building and they wouldn’t be able to do it because they’re not on that would be the purpose of the GPOD overlay district. So, anyway, um, I guess it’s, I’ve,

I’ve said my background and thank you. And I would say that it’s, you know, maybe the board can discuss whether we want to Uh, press for this change based on this background and this sort of in uh intuitive sense of the, the. Common sense intention of this overlay district, or do we pause this

and press harder on seeing if we can authorize and fund a more comprehensive look at the GPOD bylaw in its entirety. So that’s a, that’s a point of discussion, but I’ve given my background. I think it’s, I know, I probably, I, I don’t want to take my comments about the Ipswichhire watershed, you

know what if you can briefly but there’s it’s relevant in this, and I was going to say that to you and we didn’t have an opportunity. I mean, this might be uh a chance just to very, very briefly, it’s super brief indicate what you learned, sure, and I’ll leave the, I can leave the other housing part

out of it for now, if you want, or I can address it to you, but last. Uh A couple days ago anyways, there was a legislative breakfast with the Ipswis River Water Association and, uh, Senators Tar and Lovely were there as long as a handful of state reps and, um, it was a conversation about the

watershed and there’s a Northshore water resiliency. Task force Which needs an acronym, um, that’s been developed and it’s the first time that, um, regional legislature is brought in other uh handful of people to address exactly, I think what you’re describing and taking a different look at um How we connect the different

watersheds, how we add supply, how you, uh, add storage, how you, how you look at uh conservation differently, and there’s a bill, uh, a drought bill that’s been developed that they’re trying to pass through the house, I think, or the Senate, I can’t remember which one it’s gone through already,

but um There’s a, so they got a charter, they got a bunch of funding, they correct, they collected a bunch of data, and this is all excellent information that’s gonna be actionable in taking a look at, um, you know, uh, the different bylaws in the different towns and how we can Address the

issues of the different watersheds and, you know, and knowing that they’re all connected, of course, each town deals with it somewhat differently, but I think, I think there’s funding in this initiative that, uh, Senator Tarr and a few others have kind of organized to put through this task force and they’ve been, seems like making pretty

awesome progress in collecting some pretty amazing data, um, uh, there’s a few, you know, there’s a bunch of other people that were there at this meeting, um, uh, Uh, the, uh, who is the gentleman, uh, Dave Lash who’s been here before. He was there talking about don’t only think about supply, but think about

wastewater treatment and they described how that’s part of the conversation as well, um, but there was a lot of great discussion around some things that are happening which might influence actually how you craft the bylaw in, in alliance with some of these awesome. Ideas just if, if I may again just to synchronize that

conversation, um, so when the pattern ridge. Development came up um town manager at that point, uh, had been really struggling with the fact that we had been spending about $40,000 a year, testing the water at patent there’s a well on the patent property that we’ve been testing for about

1520 years at that point. The GPOD was extended because we had a town well there. The water was awful, completely awful. There was never any instance where it was even remotely close enough in quality to put into the water the Hamilton water system. We had, uh, 4 or 5 years of

lawsuits with the Ipswich River watershed and on on um uh on protecting the watershed and Hamilton was probably on the wrong side of that discussion. So it came up during the course of the patton Ridge discussion that we don’t need. that well there. In fact, if we ever

wanted to use that well, we’d have to spend millions of dollars of separate piping to bring the pipes all the way to our water treatment site, which is on the other side of Hamilton. And so we’d have to dig up all the roads and bring the, bring it over. So it became an instant decision to

let’s abandon. The the town’s patent well, um, so we would not draw and further diminish the Ipswich River watershed. So helping the quality of that watershed, not having any jaws. We weren’t as a practical matter drawing anything anyway, but we had the potential and we had the permits from the state

to do that drawing, but we didn’t do it. And we, we gave that, we gave that up. So it is something that Hamilton has been ahead of on this watershed and and not dying from it. Could I just ask a clarifying question. So was Penridge in the GPOD. Yes. Uh, the GPOD covers that whole TOS field end

of town, right, but it would seem if the well wasn’t used that maybe the map could have been amended. Well, so the map was amended long before, um, uh, uh, Joanne Patton, uh, donated the property to the town. Uh, the, um, The the well house that was, that was put there was the Patton family helping

the town when the town was stressed, so sometime. Much earlier. I don’t, it was before the 80s. That, that well was there and they said, oh yeah, you, you can have a town while there in the, the, the patent family said, do you want it down? Fine. But the quality of the water was never good enough

to, to use. So is there any other comments with respect to this? Oh Yeah, Rick Mitchell, 36 Rock Maple Ave, uh. Nice to be back. Now I’m on the other side of the table, so, um, thank you for. Um, allowing me to speak, um, yeah, there’s a lot of history that goes with this, this discussion and that

lot. Change from what Mr. um, Aldrich might have might have liked um during planning board discussions that were before my time with Peter Britton and Peter Clark, um, and they wanted to have in the GPOD lots at least 80,000 square feet because their their thought don’t ask me why, but that

their logic at the time was that you could build a potentially build a house on that line. lot And have a septic system and drill your own well and therefore alleviating the pressure on the town’s water system. Well, you know, it’s all straws and. Drinking from the same aquifer, so it was kind of flawed

thinking at the time, but, you know, the, the history is there and there was a lot of thought given to Whether it was accurate or not given to that discussion and as um Mark provided to you, um, discussion got very heated when Canterbrook was being discussed because the neighbors and including the uh Ipswich Watershed Association. You know,

was testifying that this was going to ruin the Ipswich watershed, you know, you’re going to have 23, 30 units built on what was the uh horse farm there. Well, they kind of uh obviated or the uh ignored the fact that you had a horse farm with. varying population of anywhere from 30 to 70

horses that was depositing many hundreds of thousands of pounds of manure and many 1000 gallons of urine on that piece of property, um, so it was a it was a very heated discussion about that. Bottom line is the opposition tried to use and change that definition as a way to stifle the development of

Canterbrook and as the memo from the town attorney at the time indicated. um, their attempt to change that definition to a building one unit per building lot um didn’t, uh, stand the test of interpretation, um, or prior uh definition. So my concern with this is immediately when I read

this, I’m going um well if the purpose is to protect the watershed, that’s fine and well, and that’s good, um, but it also has the potential. To uh stifle, um, any future development of multi-unit projects in the um GPOD and especially given the fact that the uh patent well is closed,

so I, I think it’s a. It, it’s a It, it needs to be discussed in a much bigger context of what you want to happen in the GPOD Canterbrook was built with a bioclear treatment system but essentially eliminates all the nutrients and the nitrogen out of the system, so what’s there now is cleaner than any of the

houses around it and any of the pre-existing horse farms. So it, it’s not a matter of water quality. Because the technology is there to make essentially they yes if you allow fertilizer that could be run off from the fertilizer, but, um, you know, we’ve dealt with that and other um developments

and, uh, attempting to prohibit the use of fertilizers or limiting it, so that’s, that’s not an issue. But my concern is that it potentially could be used as a weapon to change as a weapon to try and um impede or um block any future multi. unit development in the GPOD. Um, so, and that’s the last thing we

need to do now because we need to expand our tax base and we need to offer new and diverse types of housing in Hamilton, so that’s my point. Yes, unfortunately, I think I’m correct that that if we were to amend the GPOD. Along the lines that you say, you know, you would want to requirement.

In the bylaw to have the kind of wastewater. Treatment plant that that exists at Canterbrook. I mean, that was voluntary, but you know, if you were going to have that kind of dense development in the GPOD, it should be tied to the state of the art technology and it’s not,

it’s not there now, which is the genesis of of our very, um, you know, kind of shorthand fix before we can address the much larger picture actually within the with the el br ook development. I’m not sure. I, I can’t remember where the patent ridge, um, it was a special permit under the senior housing

bylaw, and we required it, you know, we said that became a big issue, and, you know, with the, the potential pollution and the developer volunteered, he said, we’ll put in a bioclear system that essentially will remove all the potential harmful nutrients, um, that could be flowing into the watershed, so

in that case it worked, but I agree it would be smart. Do it in a whole, um, what’s the word I want? A holistic. What’s the word? Holistic, thank you, holistic rather than the small word change that that has potential implications that you might not have think about so I think both Mark and I support

looking at this and at its entirety, but I’m just concerned that just a word change could have an untended the unintended consequences, so. I, I would, uh, I would urge you to So Not bring this up now until you’ve had time to think about this in a comprehensive

way and. And what all those words changes and additions you might want to make to Make it clear and understandable why and what you’re trying to accomplish. I just have one sort of uh ribbon to tie around that for myself, which is I agree with the point that, um, And to me this is a this is a

correction, not a change, um, looking at this historically and this is coming from the engineer who. whose company generated this, uh, and it didn’t have an agenda at the time. It was, it was just, um, you know, being generated as a bylaw. Definitely out of date.

And so, again, I offer it as a question for discussion, not me, um, pressing for a particular outcome, but I would agree that Getting this back to how it was originally drafted is more Stringent then If you had a comprehensive update to the bylaw with, you know. up to-date engineering, uh.

Standards and whatnot. However, the flip side of that. I feel concerned and Again, when I was talking to Dave about this, he didn’t have a horse in any race here. It was just engineering principles we were talking about. And Not changing it leaves, I think, the town more vulnerable. So again, it’s a

question which is, which is a better attacked here to get this thing back in the form it was originally drafted in from an engineering point of view, not a political point of view. Or wait and Um do do this comprehensively. It’s a question. I would like to um chime in here for a minute.

A lot of other people have talked. I don’t see why we can’t do this. That is to say, we, we regard the word change as a fix, and it makes perfect sense. I think it’s the lesser of two evils. I sort of agree with um. That idea, um, but then we also, you know, put it on our agenda

to think about ways of redrafting the GPOD so that it allows higher density, but with the caveat with the requirement that that involved, you know, significant treatment efforts, uh, which you wouldn’t have for individual houses. There’s nothing sort of um mutually exclusive between these two.

We fix it now and then we have an agenda to rewrite the GPOD over the next couple of years. Maybe they’ll be funding then, maybe we’ll want to do it in conjunction with something regarding 3A, which Um, and, and, and uh I think we should do both. I’m gonna chime in here, um, I think that would be

a real mistake, um, and that’s your, that’s your opinion. OK, I’m, that’s right, it is my opinion. Um, and I have a, a long and sordid history with the planning board with Canterbrook and with um Patton Ridge. And it resulted in many heated very contentious discussions with the public and

board members and we brought in legal counsel to clarify that issue and there was no ifs ands or buts about it, and that’s the only reason that we ended up with a Canterbrook or a patent ridge that’s. Adding over a million dollars to our tax base and the opposition to those developments tried to use

that word. That you want to change to sync those developments. I’m, I’m I’m gonna be very passionate and I’m gonna be very clear about this. If you attempt to change that word and it comes to town meeting, you’re going to have a floor fight. And there’s going to be 6 people that are going

to stand up there and make it an issue. When that happens at town meeting, I can almost guarantee you it will be dead, and if you do, you can’t bring it up for two years. So, uh, that’s, I’m just giving you that will take us 2 years to

redesign the GPOD in which case, uh, but if it goes through, at least we’ll have a safety net that we don’t have now. I’m telling you, you’ve you’ve got no development on the horizon. I, I’ve given my, I’ve given you my thoughts on it. Um, I’ll

leave it at that. Yeah, I’d just like to make a comment on this. I, I think that I’ve heard a lot of good comments tonight, good, good thinking on both, uh. And I can see both sides of this. Um, I I agree with Bill in this case. I think

there has to be a default position because I think what the, the law now is, is, is need to fix. It, it is, uh, my understanding is that the original one acre single-family house was the result of a study that it takes um for a typical

family of 34 bedrooms. It takes about 1 acre for a good septic system in the ground. And that became kind of a default thing for, for building residential developments, and then this town has a 80,000 square foot. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the 80,000 was

picked out and used as a, a GPOD number for a number of dwelling units, uh, I think that was deliberate and Because it’s logical, so I think that I think we do need to fix the whole thing if there are to be changes, we’re gonna need some,

uh, people with more firepower than we have, uh, you know, on this board to, to take care of that. So I think as a default until that time, even if it takes 2 years, I think. As a default to prevent because there are, there are 3A projects that could be pop up anywhere, uh, in, in town why

why I’m back up again. Um, so, well, let me just wrap up, let me just wrap up. So I, I think uh we, we’re gonna probably move on, but the, um, I, I think this is a, is a correct fix, and I think that that would be the position I would

take on this, that, uh, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re decades behind the technology. But until something is codified, something is put in the code that says if you have multi-family living or you have, and you’re going to use the ground as the, uh, you know, as the wastewater treatment, then there has to be a provision in

there for different quality levels of, uh, you know, septic system that takes place, not just Title 5, so I don’t, um, You know, I, that’s, that’s the position I would take on this. So the, uh, Mark Johnson patent Drive again. Um, uh, 3A. is mostly within the half, the half mile of downtown. Um We

don’t have a GPOD, uh, in that area. Well, they’d be remote sites, remote sites where where where where the immediate 3 a risk that the town is sort of debating is, is not one that’s really conflicted with, with this because the, the reasons for or against 3A are completely different and not

this. Um, so I, I, I would highly recommend not mixing those two topics up because they are, they are, they are different. Um So, um, but The I’m still listening for 3A, we will address the question of what kind of sewage treatments are useful and needed around here and in the process of

doing that, we will probably learn a lot. It might be very useful in redesigning the GPOD as a second stage to this process over the next couple of years. That doesn’t ameliorate the need to fix it now. Um, I’m not sure that anybody He has articulated other than some. Perhaps Third party interpretation of what the

history was in 1985 or 1990, um, Haley Aldrich did the maps in 2000. They didn’t do the bylaw language change. Um, the, um, Uh, the, I have yet to hear someone say how our groundwater is better protected under a dwelling unit versus a building lot. Uh, you, you, you all passionately, or several of you

passionately feel that way, but I haven’t heard anybody. Tell us in what way that protects our groundwater, um, and it’s, it’s an anti-development. It’s, it’s a simple septage per acre measurement. It’s, it’s common sense. If you put a bunch of it’s common sense and I believe, I believe Jonathan was right

that the original engineering study came up with that idea. It was dwelling in it and somehow it morphed over the years to lot and the original engineering said no, it really should be dwelling in it. So that’s, that’s that’s expert enough for me, I think I think we do uh, Robin, you have a

clarification question. I just want to make sure the line, so I obviously had the draft warrant that I looked. That as well. And knowing that there’s some discrepancies with the bylaw itself, so the draft warrant I saw had the phrase for building lot twice, but I think it’s only once in the

warrant, and I just want to make sure that’s accurate so that we’re striking it, but then it’s not going to appear again. So I just want to confirm that current section 914 is sent to the So I, I just want to confirm that it reads regardless of the minimum lot size of the underlying zone.

There shall be a minimum lot area of 80,000 square feet for a building lot in the GPOD. You’re proposing to strike for a building lot and add per dwelling unit. Correct. Yes, it it I saw on the war just said for a building lot twice and I wanted to make sure that it didn’t get reinserted.

Incidentally, so. So and that that’s the other thing that I wanted to, to add. I’m, I don’t know that you’ll be able to apply the 80,000 to 80Us. There’s language in the Chelsea regulations about, um, not having increased, increased essentially lot area requirements for an ADU, um, and so I can’t say you will or

won’t, but I would have concerns that that would be subject to challenge if you try to apply it to an ADU and that goes, you know. To the EOHL and Mark and I had talked about it a little bit for sure, you know, it may be something you want to address directly, but there’s language in the EOHLC

regulations about not having a lot area requirements for ADUs and we’re reading those as meetings as of right, so I did want to mention that because I heard it as part of the conversation just so you’re clear on, on that issue revised regulations say we can’t have a stricter density than we have

for single families. Get a new life. Right. Yeah, this actually, I think, um. I But I think. Right You know, when all these come in right after this process for process for you as You see what I was talking about on that. Yes, I do, and I

think that that second building lot has to come out, uh, just a process question. I didn’t know if you guys wanted to vote your recommendation on each one as you go. Or if you’re going to vote all at the end of how it was more clear I think that

we’ll probably vote on this one because this is the only one where we had any public input and the remainder we can uh do as a group, um. Yeah, um, so, uh, we lost our audience, but we still uh should probably um uh take a vote as to whether or

not we want to consider um the uh remarks made by Rick Mitchell and Mark Johnson, so, um, uh, I will entertain a motion to um keep the bylaw amendment on the warrant and uh And I think we can’t put on the warrant with the understanding that we will address the GPOD holistically to to uh but we

will and we, but we can’t do that and we should, we can’t do that many other occasions as we debate 3A where we’ll learn a lot and we’ll, we should do it. That’s pinky square. Yeah But I think, I think it’s, it’s worthwhile recognizing the advancements in technology in,

in the GPOD and, and And making accommodation for that. So, uh, we can take a look at it. I, I mean we have, we have someone with some expertise who can, you know, at our next meeting, have a first draft of a revised DPOD. Well, I, I do feel like,

and there was an understanding that this task force would provide those resources and give the board of health tools. I’ll give the board of health some tools with, you know, how people try to request or register new well. and things like that. So I think there’s a lot of good governance or

guidelines that come out of this process and probably some, you know, physical engineering changes that get made, um, you know, whether to be bringing in some MWRA resources or You know, different, different ways of looking at how we dispose of wastewater too, so storm, let’s go to a vote. So do I have a

motion motion one quick thing on that this is from a process perspective as well. Part of the point of a 485 hearing is to make your report of recommendations to town meeting. So if the motions can be not just that you want it in the warrant, but that you’re recommending adoption of timing

you’re not recommending adoption. We want to make sure we get that report in to town meeting from tonight as well. OK, so the motion should be that that the planning board will, uh, report to um. That the the yeah, the motion would be that that you move that, um, the planning board recommend a

town meeting adopt this bylaw. Do we need a why within that motion or just the recommendations. So you certainly don’t need to. I mean, you can speak as individuals at town meeting, um, you can put more in if you want, but But it’s not just that you want to

see it, not, you’re not just saying that the select movie we want to see it on the warrant, but you’re actually telling down meaning what you think they should do about it, right. I second that. Well, no, we need. We need the motion first. I will try to make a motion, um.

Let me make sure I uh planning board recommends that the town meeting adopt. What was that? The GPOD yeah. Got to name the section. You can just say that the planning board recommends that, um, the timing you take favorable action or that the town meeting amend the bylaws.

You know, set forth in the warrant or as proposed. Um, the bottom line is you just want to be having an official vote of the board to give guidance to town. Let’s think about this for a minute. We need a section number’s section number is 9.1.4 I warrant articles get set up if it if if it’s helpful

is that it refers to the planning board recommending favorable action so you could say, you know, I, I entertain emotion that the planning to recommend favorable action on the groundwater production overlay district amendment. Probably good enough. Right. OK, I’m going to um rec uh the planning board recommends that the town meeting adopt the Um

Gosh. Favorable position favorable position, thank you, uh, on the 9.1.4. Which is the ground DPOD yeah. I second that. OK, so when I call your name, would you please indicate whether you agree with that motion, Pat Norton. Jonathan Poor Jonathan Poor Amquist Amil Dahlquist, Darcy Dale.

Darcy Dale, I, that’s her, I. They Wheaton, Bill Wheat and I, and Marie Crouch I. Thank you, everyone. I, I know it is controversial, but I think it is commonsensical in the last analysis. OK. So, I think that the next um. Uh, and, and please, uh, you know, for the warrant, I, I think that again,

um, the, the The way this article should read is. Regardless of the minimum lot size of the underlying zone, there shall be a minimum lot area of 80,000 square feet per dwelling unit in the GPOD. So we have to correct some of the language in this article. So, um, Uh, the next, um, uh.

article I want an article bylaw I want to address is uh 10.6. Because, um, You want, you want to go through each one of these and we’ll make a motion. I think with as opposed to lumping them together, yeah, maybe with 10.6 because apparently I, you know, it’s, I apologize, Robin did not have

the benefit of that, um. Bylaw amendment and so when I was at the select board meeting on Monday, I was. Confronted with all the comments she had to 10.6 and uh. I was Frankly, not. I was surprised, but I was not able to address them, so um.

I think we need to go through Robin’s um. Comments to 10.6, and I hope I can find that. that might be. Mike, did you print that? You did print them out, right? Yes, OK, so. I kept them Oh, here they are. OK Uh, the very end of the document.

Right Yeah. Yeah Is this? Like can you OK. So I’ll take, I’ll take the initiative here. And We can address. Robin’s comments. You want to read it with me? OK. So The first right this Comments are with respect to 10.6.1. And um. For the most part, Robin, the language in 10.6.1. Well it’s Reorganized a

little bit. That the language tracks what’s in the existing bylaw. Yeah. And, and I, I recognize that some of this is in the existing bylaw. I actually don’t think my comments are that extensive, they’re mostly just comments more than than, you know, recommended changes even, but when you do a strike and replace, the Attorney general

does look at the whole thing, so I looked at the whole thing and you know, sometimes it’s an opportunity to clean some things up, so not, you know. No, I’m not criticizing you and you made some, uh, really, uh, maybe stylistic changes, uh, so with respect to that first section, um, I accept your

changes by deleting town and and the leading consideration, uh, and replacing it with uh planning board and input and then um Where I’m, I’m not looking at, let’s see. 60, there you go, sorry. 1061 it was it was um. Hard to read on my copy. Should have printed it in color, so I’m going to put

OK on that one unless anybody has a problem. OK. Uh, and then the second one you had a comment, what does this mean? Demonstrate compliance. So you skip skip one on number 22 skip 2 which you can skip the purpose is to provide a mechanism. Yeah, she said this must be applied consistent with

the nondescript it was just, it’s just a statement. It’s we don’t have to change it, right? No, it’s just a comment that seemed OK to me, so we had the applicant, uh. Has to demonstrate compliance and you say, what does this mean? Do you have any other language

that you want, I just, I wanted just to, I, I felt like perhaps I needed clarification, and that was kind of my second question there was by demonstrate compliance, are you saying they should have approvals in hand from other boards or is the planning board going to be in a position of

having to weigh in on, on that compliance. I just wanted, I thought it needed a little maybe just process clarification, um, because again, you’re talking about, um, you know, doing a pre pre Review conference. So I guess I just, I’m asking what you, what you intend that to mean, you

know, does somebody, do they have to have approval from all the other boards before they come to you? Is that the intent? I don’t think we’re asking for an approval, but you have to have gone through the steps. To get an approval, you know, to, to those, for those issues. Um, I mean, for example, I mean, I

think we said if applicable, so. If An applicant had to um Have a stormwater management, um. Hermit, we would want to see that in conjunction with site plan review. So that’s why I was asking if if you wanted it to be that, you know, the site plan won’t be considered until

the applicant has. other approvals in hand? Or it’s a conversation that they have with you to say, well, we think we can get that. That’s why I’m asking. I just, so that people know what they need to do, couldn’t couldn’t it be clarified so that, that it can’t be voted on until Or, you

know, closed until acted upon that would clear it up, yeah, it can’t be acted upon until you demonstrate approvals and that’s sort of a standard thing in board processes, but I agree that’s missing to act upon, and I think that clears up my question. That’s helpful. Perfect. Makes sense. Mhm OK Next, the pre-application

conference and I have to say that select board um and, and, and the town manager viewed this as extremely onerous, so from the planning board’s perspective, this pre-application conference is not onerous. It’s actually going to save the applicant a significant amount of money if they come before the planning board with a concept plan.

They don’t have to come with all their experts and engineers. They have to come and say this is what we’re thinking and and and have some idea of what they’re they’re going to do, but before they undertake all the engineering and all this, uh, you know, expenses, uh, talk to the. A planning board

and maybe we can work through any issues and save you a lot of money. So that’s the intent here. We could we could clarify that and say that we don’t need any engineering. We don’t need your consultants. We just need the basic concept. Yeah, I mean

you might, you might want to soften it a bit. I mean, again, these are, these are policy decisions, really, you know, it, my note is more that I think it’s unusual given the non-discretionary nature of site plan to see a mandatory pre-application cost. You know, certainly folks can always come

in and talk to the board, um, but given the what site plan reviews for and the non-discretionary nature, you know, it’s not a special permit. It’s not a large project. The board’s level of review is more limited. I’m, I’m just noting it to you because if it was

applied in a way, um, you know, where it was almost turning applications into special permits, I could see you getting some pushback. I mean it’s, it’s, it’s like it’s just a discussion. It’s coming, we could certainly clarify that. Yeah, it says it shall be required. It had a certain

mandatoryness to it, but again, I think to Jonathan’s point, I mean, you could say it’s recommended or um I’m not necessarily saying it’s recommended. I’m, I’m, I’m suggesting it should be required, but, but we could clarify the fact that it doesn’t need to be a fully engineered, um, proposal just needs to be a rough concept in

the next section it’s in the next section. What, what’s required conference materials plan which is conceptual. It requires a filing fee. It’s a mandatory conference. Again, their policy decisions for you. I’m just noting it’s unusual in sight plan and noting that to be cautious in how it’s applied because if it kind of crosses a

line into turning site planned into something overly onerous or discretionary you might get some pushback the whole purpose. on this is to switch from an adversarial relationship where you have to come here, so we, we’re going to approve it. Change that to a collaborative one. That’s the whole purpose

on this is to kind of loosen up and let people, uh, and maybe that could be reflected in the wording, yeah, so, um, I mean, I, I get that I, I do think see when he says onerous, I’m not sure, does he mean it’s expensive? For a developer, no,

I know, but I mean for me seeing two trips to the board for, for a site plan is unusual and um. It’s not always for site plan though is it? Well, no, for certain, well, for abbreviated ones, no. You know, and even I will say if you look

at C, and again, I’m not, I don’t have a position on this, but I when I read, see, it reads to me like that’s a good amount of information, so, um, you know, it does seem like folks do need to put a good amount in to even get to the

pre-application conference. Um, and at that point, I, you know, somebody might say why can’t I just come in for my site. Like why do I have to come twice, right? Um. I’m not saying you can’t do it. I’m just cautioning that if it gets applied in a way that is, is turning what’s supposed to be a

non-discretionary process. This is something that’s encouraged. It doesn’t have to be mandatory. I don’t, I don’t think you could demand somebody to do it if they don’t want to go, they don’t I know that’s, we could change that word. I’m OK with that because be required to strongly encouraged that, yeah, I think. And you could even add

some wording in there, um. Encouraged because, yeah. So that can, um, can, uh, take a, can, can guide it to, you know, potential success or some some something to that effect. I mean, in my work, we ask for them, even if they’re not, if they’re not, if they’re not

suggested. We ask, we make them happen, because for us, it saves time. You can read the room, you can figure out what the policies are. You can see what the points are. It’s a must in my world. You could say to streamline the process and in, in my world, we’re able to permit the unpermittable by

following that process. You know, I’m, I’m not advocating against it. I’m just letting you know it’s unusual and what I see and and why I think it’s unusual. Sure, but I think we could temper the wording so it’s more positive. I’m, I’m, I have to cut to the chase here.

We’ll be here till midnight so a pre-application conference shall be required prior to the. The mission of site plan of a site. Grand review application. Uh, in order to change that to a pre-application conference is strongly recommended, right, uh. We want to say reduce expenses. Give me, you know, uh, reduce expense and streamline the

process. I don’t know we should say reduced expense because I don’t know if we should like streamline the process streamline the process for, for both sides. Yes, the first the applicant and and for the you could even then clarification point on that. I notice that there’s a $75 fee for the

pre-application conference. I didn’t notice another fee, but I don’t think you want to charge twice. No, OK. OK, and then we’ll start a new sentence of the following types. Of applications um require a pre, no, um. Should Be the subject of a pre-application conference. OK I’d be in favor of even softening the language further

saying a pre-application process, uh, is made available to help streamline the pro, you know, do all the things in the benefit, and I almost think that a guideline document that you guys were describing, you know, at Rich’s disposal to help folks, um, when pulling, you know, whatever documents

they need to apply, uh, is a. A lot more helpful I’ll just encouraged, encouraged, um. That that kind of is available in it even further, you could say prior to engaging consultants. Um, you know, you’re looking for the concept, you’re looking for the first move. Are you sailing the ship north or south? North might be

perfect. South might stink. And that’s where you’re trying to help them can do without without hiring consultants you’re talking topography and elevation, so I mean, again, I, I leave it to you but point is early on before you, you, you’re, you’ve calcified the, the project into A direction

that you can’t change. That’s the point. And even they don’t want to do it when they find out what’s involved, they might decide, well, you could, you could also say in number 2, instead of saying like at a minimum, these are required, you could say, um, these following documents are helpful

in support of us, you know, making it known that it’s even more helpful if you come with these things. If you don’t, then is we’re we’re open to a discussion without them. Right OK, so just because I know Mark’s trying to write this down and to make changes in Marnier as well. I have that

you’re gonna change 1063 to say that a pre-application process is strongly recommended in order just encouraged encouraged, so now, OK, we’re just encouraged. OK, so a pre-application conference. I encouraged. In order to streamline the process prior to the submission of the site plan application for the following types of applications and then

when you go down into where it says pre-application conference. I think you got, you have to take out mandatory. So it says pre-application conference shall not be required, uh, for any, well again, I mean, you might. Yeah. You may want to just take that sentence out because it’s not required at

all, um. Yeah. You know, so you may wanna, you may wanna just strike that sentence and then say, Um, you know. I mean, you might want to, I don’t know, you might want to cut this whole paragraph because it really changes the tone when you’re saying. You know, applications eligible for

resight plan are not required, but nothing is required now, right? Yeah. So maybe you just take out that whole sentence that starts with a pre-application conference because it seemed like the bottom of that page right above one, yeah, the paragraph that starts a pre-application conference shall not be required for any other

applications seems almost like that whole paragraph can go. OK. Yeah, and then just give a purpose after that, um. I think I, I think that just kind of just takes the edge off a little. Yeah. Give a comfort level to folks think then then purpose of pre-application conference should be 5. Not 4

And here it was 4. Yeah, well, it was 12, you have should be 5 and 3 should be 6. And then 7. Do you want to give the purpose after? You stay I mean, should it start with the purpose? Instead of be in the middle. Yeah, we started to write the purpose in the first

description, but Uh so I don’t think we need to repeat it. Just, you know, do the strongly recommended and not give a purpose then. But now you’re just gonna say encourage and take out in order to streamline, OK. OK. I. Is it, Mark, are you tracking all these? Can you go through that one you just made.

So 1063. It’s just gonna say a pre-application conference is encouraged instead of shall be required. And then. You have 10 631234. The paragraph that at least in the version I have it, it, it’s like goes to the left and says a pre-application conference. That whole paragraph’s coming out and then 5 is purpose of the pre-application conference.

6 is minimum pre-application conference materials. Yeah. And then 7, which we’re not gonna. Which we’re gonna correct. We’re gonna say the applicant, um, you know. Or could we just change minimum to encouraged? For Sure, yeah, I encouraged to or you can just take out mum and just have it say pre-application conference

materials and say the applicant is encouraged to provide. Yeah. So could we go back to the first. I’m going to read it because I’m gonna have to. Well, we’ll have to figure this out. A pre-application conference is encouraged prior to the submission of site plan. Submission of a site plan review application in order to

streamline the process for the applicant and the board so they, they think they said they the points that they wanted to take that out because you have a whole purpose section so literally in that 1st 1063, all you’re doing is changing. shall be required to is encouraged and nothing else is changing

from 1063 1 through 4. You know, I think, um, I think Pat’s comment maybe moved the purpose first in the first number one purpose and then go, 1 would be number 2 and 2 would be number 3 and so forth. Oh please. clumsy but I would support that.

Well, then you need to reward it though because the way it reads now is it the following types of applications and then it goes, you know, we have to get these out tomorrow OK so leave it in that order. leave it, leave it in that order. And then, so then the whole pre-application conference shall not be required.

Paragraphs being struck. So after 4, that whole paragraphs being struck and then the one that used to say one purpose of pre-application conference is now 5, and the only chain, there’s no change in that paragraph 2 becomes 6, you’re gonna cross off the word minimum, where it says minimum pre-application conference materials just have it say

pre-application conference materials and then it’s gonna say the applicant is encouraged to provide and that’s as far as I got on my notes. Well, you could say then the following materials get rid of the word minimum. minimums. Yeah Yeah So under number 6, so it says the applicant shall provide the

following materials so we’re putting encouraged to take out. I just want to take out the shell to take out. I just want to take out the shell sure taking out minimum in the title but not in the sentence where it says the applicant is encouraged to provide the the following minimum materials

yeah that’s as far as I got before encouraging it, then we shouldn’t. Uh, we shouldn’t apply a fee. The fee should be in the actual cycle like the fee should be on the actual site too, because if people skip that then they’re like, well, I’m gonna skip it and then I don’t have any faith.

I, I think that’s a good point. It just seems more natural to have it in the actual obligations. So where does that go? I think you guys can work that in just like somewhere else towards the end to put the fee, so then C becomes B, yeah. And then plan. you would, it would be under 10.

10.6 Yeah, 106, it’d be in the section for site plan review, right. But you probably could put it in 1068, which is your procedures. Um, but, or just have it at the end and say what the fee is. I mean the fee in the bylaw usually or is it in the can be in the regulations.

The fee can be in the re I don’t know if it has to be in the bylaw at all. What you do now I would just do so with a separate from review for the pre-application. Well, I wouldn’t charge two fees. No. My only concern is, so I’ve worked in New Hampshire, so I

know it’s a different system, but We had people that it was a $50 fee and they would come like 5 times for for preliminary applications they kept wanting planning board feedback before they submit an application. So we kept talking about raising the fees because it was getting very annoying

because it took up so much of the board’s time to do these preliminaries. I wouldn’t, again, I, I would have one fee for. Well in Massachusetts don’t want to come here anymore. New Hampshire is different, you got, yeah, um, I would take a look at however you do the fees now and just do them the same

way. And if we leave them in the regulations, that’s easier to change. Yes. All right, so we’re just gonna, we’re gonna are we taking it out of the bylaw and leaving it in the ring. Should be out of the right a lot because of inflation. All right, well then, I didn’t, I didn’t think it’d

be that complicated, but that takes us down to at least for my comments to we didn’t address your comments to um gross floor area I just had a I had a question because it in you’re right in 10631 it just says, which increases the gross building floor area and I just.

Like you have to find terms, so anytime you have defined terms, I recommend you use them, so I just building is extra there so just gross floor area. Yeah, you can take that out. And then you have um. Yeah, this is curious see small doesn’t 350

seems like a small. I mean, if someone, I mean I’m a little less concerned about it because you’ve made it non-mandatory. I mean, if you were telling every commercial use that put in a 400 square foot shed that they needed two levels of site plan, that’s where I could see somebody raising a challenge,

but where you’ve made it, non-mandatory, I’m less concerned about you getting a challenge on it. I think that’s where the owner comes in where you have something really small or should we increase that because 350 square feet is small. It’s really small. I was going to Ward’s Ward’s hair salon is is bigger than that.

We did 350 come from I don’t know because of the fire department. The building was, it’s a small building, it’s but it’s a prominent building, so I think that was, it was the. The museum,,, 00, OK. All right. I never thought of that. If it’s that small, they won’t come.

I’m less concerned with it now, yeah, they won’t come if it’s that OK, so I think we’ve got that section squared away. So that takes all the way down to 1064 he’s jumping ahead. My question on I ask you a question about 10 1064. Yeah, that’s where we are um it’s it’s all No building permits

shall be issued. I didn’t think Salan had that much teeth to it. No, when you, when you require site plan approval, the point is that before you can get your building permit, you have to get your site plan approval. So all this is saying is no building permit will be issued for the things that need site

plan reviewed till they get site plan review. Right, that’s right. There’s a building code requires compliance with zoning before you can issue a building permit. So zoning requires site plan review, you would need site plan review before you could get the building part. OK, so you added juice. I’m good

with that. That’s OK. Um And Well, just before that changes to an existing structure that makes site plan review a lot more, puts a lot more teeth into it than simply an advisory role. You know, because you, you just have to go through the process, but the process is not there’s no approval. It’s just

advisory. It’s a non-discretionary process regardless, but it’s, it’s customary. It’s, it’s absolutely the way site plan works that you get the site plan approval before you get the building permit. It’s just your review insight plan is circumscribed compared. to say a special partner or a bear, you know, there’s only born of

variants. The type of review you do is limited. It says you don’t get a building permit until. Yes, right. That’s what’s that’s how site plan it just that they have to come to site site plan review we don’t like the project and we never give it approval. Isn’t that amounting to a V and then

they’ll succeed in an appeal because you don’t have authority through site plan reviews, they will appeal. All right that’s what I’m trying to say is you can’t turn your non-discretionary site plan review into uh discretionary decision about whether or not you like the project. Um, my question on one was more just a Um, the modifying like

punctuation question, so It’s to any new construction or changes to an existing structure. For the purposes so. I don’t know, I just wanna make sure you guys read it and make sure it reads the way you want it to be. Well, this is from the existing bylaw. I know.

Yeah. This is the time if there’s something to clean up, we clean it up. Changes. It just it may be fine, it may have just been. You know, my I think, I think the reason it’s in there is that if there isn’t, if there is a change of use,

for example, in that building that could be a change in function, which could be a change in how you’re going to review it. Yeah, no, I think that’s fine. I just was more just sort of rambles a bit. Yeah, it does. It doesn’t read very smoothly. It’s fine. I wasn’t recommending a change.

It was more like just make sure you read it and like it, but that’s all since I was looking at it. Um The rest are more just comments. There’s nothing to really the next two are just comments, um, so would you change, um, in number 2, you had a comment about government.

I mean, would you just change that to town. I mean, you could say municipal. I’m just pointing out it doesn’t really matter if it’s a state use, it’s not going to be subject to zoning. Right. You know, in the same state or federal is not subject to zoning and the same thing with um. You know, if

it’s, if it’s a commercial agriculture, there’s a more limited. Or civic civic buildings, I was just noting it more than anything, um. So the interior alteration one and again I know it’s in the existing. I’m just flagging it. I think something that’s, you may get a comment from the AG. I mean, zoning doesn’t normally regulate interior

uses.reconfiguring their interior to get more usable space, but it didn’t, for example, under the bylaw like trigger more for parking requirement or anything else. There may not really be any. Reason to do sightline or any basis for a sightline. There’s nothing exterior changing. I could see you getting pushback

on that. You might get a comment from the AG. I know it’s in the what you have, but you’re striking and replacing they’re gonna read everything’s worded though, it sounds like it cares about interior alterations, but it doesn’t. It, it, it cares about the ripple effect out into the site.

Well, that’s what I’m saying but it’s not very clearly worded that you’ve captured it elsewhere, right, if it’s more like if it’s more 5 more parking spaces. So somebody’s making an interior change. That under your parking now needs 6 new parking spaces. that’s No, I don’t know I don’t know. Yeah, the way it’s the sentence

starts, I think, is misleading. Yes, but if you, the thing is, yeah, if you rearrange the order of the building so you add more space to something that the intent. It’s just the way the sentence reads and just keep it as alterations which increase. Yeah, that would do

it. There you go. So we’ll take out of. Um, so that was that. There really, I really didn’t have a lot in this one. It was just more. I don’t know. I always like to read these if, if I was just a person walking in to fill out an application,

would I know how to use it it changes from interior to just alterations so we’re just gonna take out the word interior. I would take out the word interior in 1066 as well and 10661 just to keep that consistent. Um And then my question on 10669 may go to your point, Marnie, that the

online bilaw was wrong, but I just didn’t see a B7, so I didn’t know what it was and I wanted to make sure that reference was correct that right now. B7. It’s wrong. Let’s see. Away. You is permitted by special Entries B1, B3 and B7. Yes. OK, B1. Is use of land and structures for re

religious purposes. B3 Use ofland or structures for educational purposes. On land owned or leased by the Commonwealth or any of its agencies, subdivisions, or bodies, politic or by a religious sect. And 7 is childcare, so this is Dover Amendment. So, in yours there is a B7, it’s childcare. Yeah, so this is perfect. All right,

let’s see. I think we’re almost done. Um, just another comment on 1069, you know, anytime that you adopt any kind of design guidelines or regulations outside of a town meeting process. They don’t have the same binding effect. I’m just pointing it out obviously anything needs to be within the scope of this, but um they’re really guidelines, they’re

really recommendations as, as opposed to something binding I think I said that we say, however, it’s recommendations shall be non-binding on the actions of the planning board so we’ve covered that they’re nonbinding on you, but I wanna make sure everyone attends are also non-binding on applicants like that’s why they’re guidelines. I always flag it I

always flag it Why don’t we just say non-binding. period. Sure. Promoting success. is so make its determination within with no wait what’s this what does make its non-binding that they can ignore it completely, which they technically can, but if you can say you advise them. Like it’s an advisory. I mean, you you you you could you could

end you could end to the planning board concerning site design and architecture of the post development period. I mean, they are non-binding. So like you could just get rid of the rest of the sentence if you want. Get rid of from however, get rid of the rest of the whole rid How’s that, is that

more. Yeah, that works. OK. And then So the reason I’m asking what does make its determination mean is I think you just need to be really clear about like what you’re supposed to do, but like the certain times like ordinarily when we’re dealing with land use boards, it’s the filing of

the decision with the town clerk. That’s the action. And so I just, you know, wanted to be clear, like when you said failure to decide within 65 days. Um Or that you’re, you know, is it, is it voting within 65 days? Is it filing a decision within 65 days you’re gonna talk constructive

approval. I just wanted to be clear. And you know, normally for special permits, we go 90 days from the close of the public hearing. This is different. It’s something to keep track of, so I just wanna make sure everyone’s clear on what triggers a constructive approval. Well, shouldn’t we

say the planning board shall issue its decision. Yeah, I would say file your written decision with the town clerk is really what you’re, what you’re going for, but 65 days may not be a lot of time to get it filed, so. Um, that’s up to you. Yeah. What did you say the standard was 90s 90 days from

the close of the public hearing to file with the town clerk would it be reasonable to just use that, I think just for keeping track of it. If everything’s 90 days, it’s easier to not make a mistake, but that’s just fine. Yeah, that sounds good we’re gonna change this to the planning

board shall. File it’s Written written decision with the town clerk within 90 days of the cause of the public hearing and then you can say unless the specifically agrees in writing failure to, I would just say file the decision. Within the 90 days, and that just makes it clear. Yeah That’s fine.

Just one less thing to have uncertainty about. Um, let’s see my another one was just a comment, um, and then the last one I had on 10, 6, 13 again, policy decisions for you, um, you know, one year to begin construction. That can be challenging depending on what other kind of permitting and

and what have you, um, it’s a little bit unusual, but I guess not maybe unheard of to have a completion date, you know, and so that’s just something, you know, you may see challenges on, it’s not, you know, usually for, for special permits, for example, the statute lets you to allow up to 3 years. I’m not

sure if your bile gives 2 or 3, I can’t remember, but, um, you know. One year to start construction might just be something you want to think about whether or not that’s. I think the completion date seems onerous to me as well. I think complete within 3 is. Onerous enough that who knows what

financing is available for stuff like this for people, you know what I mean, supplies I mean you can just say that they need to exercise it, you know, they need to begin construction or or something within 23 years, whatever you think and leave it at that would probably be fair and and pretty standard and not

take and take the completion date completely out out of there. Actually, I have to say no because I live across the street. From a building that was. Started and never finished and it’s an eyesore. That’s right. It’s an eyesore, you know what you could do is you eyesore, you know what you

could do is you is is and it doesn’t, there’s no ability to make them finish it. Let’s put that in the bylaw. You should see this thing. I mean, I’m not again I’m not advocating. I’m trying to keep you guys out of challenges and out of fights and see me laugh, but it, it’s not gonna accomplish making

somebody do it. It means if they start within a year and they get into some issues and there aren’t done in 2 years, their permit goes away. Now they’re just back here asking for a new permit, um, you know. Well, a lot of, uh, ordinances have a provision for renewing a

permit. Like you can renew a concom permit. You can function a little differently, right? Cocom statutorily you get 3 years. It’s a different permit, um. This isn’t really a permit, right? Like it’s a review, it’s an approval it’s not even like a use special permit or something, um. You know, I, I think you, you probably want to

go more than one year to get started. Well, it says in less extension is granted by the planning board, so there you have it, I mean they can get an extension, you know, I don’t think we have to change that. I also think we have a by lot that um restricts eyesores and, you know, unsightly it’s very

limited it’s very limited it’s very limited It’s very limited though to take out to be completed within 2 years it says unless is that I didn’t know what everybody else, I say it in because I, I, you know, every change we make is an opportunity to have another typo or another. You want to

increase the one year. I’d increase the one year. I would increase the one year if you’re gonna increase the one year, to be completed within 2 tight and especially the more, the more regulations there are, the more things get delayed. So you want to make 2 years in 3 years? 2 years and no, and nothing.

2 years of nothing. 2 years of me too. It’s not up to me. I’m just taking notes. So you do, but just so my notes are, do I hear you wanna just change it to say that construction has to start within 2 years period unless extended and, and generally things don’t stall out um with any kind of

motivation. Usually things go sideways. And if you have other regulations where if something’s an attractive nuisance or a nice or that’s covered elsewhere, or if it’s unsafe, that’s where it’s rich has to be condemned or something like that, you know, you can deal with all of that

differently. OK, I mean that I, you know, um. All right, and then I, Marie, I think I heard you say earlier you don’t need the definition change that’s in here. So that can just come out. So that was, those were just my comments. I don’t know if any

other questions for me, but can I just go back to the change that was recommended for, uh, Section 10.62. Let’s go back. So the only change I had in 1062 is that the word considered is being changed to. Acted upon Was changed to what? Acted upon. So instead of saying you’re not going to

consider it until the other stuff you’re just not not gonna vote simultaneously, yeah, that’s all I had on that one. I would have a concern with requiring people to get like their septic approval before planning for approval because the unit count might change during the planning board deliberations, things like that.

So I’ve always handled it as the plain word adds a condition that you have to obtain the approvals before issuing a building permit or before. Uh, final plan approval. I think that’s why I think that could work, yeah, because usually the building pertment is really the gating act. Yeah, you could set

up conflicts then. I agree and that’s why I was asking what demonstrate compliance meant so what do you want to do with that then? Uh, let’s see, I type my application show. Maybe just adding a sentence at the end, the planning board may require, um, Approvals after planning board. Yeah, I mean,

you could say, um, I say a plan review applications should not be acted upon unless the applicant demonstrates compliance and then I mean you could add something that says, you know, compliance. Maybe demonstrated through a condition of approval. Yes, compliance may be um. Address through a through a condition of approval. Yeah. How’s that

sound to folks? What, what, what, what was that after that, what we’re saying what compliance maybe a condition of approval, it’s, it’s, um. Let’s see. The site plan review application should not be acted upon rather than considered, right? That’s the first piece unless the applicant demonstrates Compliance with the following bylaws and

regulations if applicable. And then you’re trying to tag on. Um Uh, the planning board, adding a sense of condition of a sentence compliance may be obtained uh post planning board approval as a condition of approval. Yeah, I mean, I think you would say, you know, compliance can be addressed,

you know, through a condition of approval, yeah. And it gives you a little wiggle room to say we’re gonna put it on as a condition. Cause sometimes folks get bounced back and forth a little bit between Coon and you and you know, you gotta work’s always iterative all sorts of things can change, you

know, and that you know it’s sympathetic to when people have to go to multiple boards at once, right? Right. Um-hum. So do you want, if you’re all set and don’t have any other questions, do you want to take a vote to recommend, um, I, you know, maybe a, a motion to recommend inclusion in the

warrant in this form and adoption by town meeting in this form. Yes. OK. I’ll make a motion. Um, that we vote to, um, to approve the inclusion of the warrant I’m sorry. I’m sorry that we recommend inclusion of the warrant. And what was that last part in this form with these changes in this form with

these changes and adoption by Tommy and adoption by town. To have a second? OK, Pat Norton Norton. Jonathan Post, Darcy Dale. Darcy Dale, I, that’s her. I Wheaton Wheat and I and Marty Crouch I. All right, OK, that sounds good. Now, OK. All the hard work’s done. The hard

work’s done. Now let’s, let’s do the cleanup work because Um, the. select board had the wrong version. Of section. Our proposed amendments to 3.0. Somehow the wrong version of the ADU. Proposal got into the draft warrant. Mm Right, so now you have I, I believe I sent you, Robin, the version that.

Think is the one. That I, I remember after our meeting and we went through all your suggestions. I immediately uh. put everything in and I think. It’s correct. So just to review, I mean, I did have to change the table of use regulations. the marijuana establishment item already in the bi, it’s

just not on the one online. Yes, OK, so then I wouldn’t put it in here bold and underlined because it looks like you’re adding it new... 00, OK, oh yeah, that, that was my only question so that’s not actually a change that’s just something that you fixed so that it actually reflects the existing

base zone. Yeah, no, good point. All right, so that was my only question on that. I mean, I have a couple minor comments on this, but we already went through it. Yeah, well, let’s repeat. I mean, no, if, if they’re, you know, we can. Yeah, I’m not, I don’t, I don’t think

unless you want me to, I don’t think I need to repeat all my prior comments we addressed all your prior comment a couple little things on the one that you sent me today. OK, so which I can go through very quickly, um, section. 363. Yeah yeah. There’s 364 I think So where it says an accessory dwelling unit

shall be permitted by right. Oh, actually, sorry, before on the last one. I just realized you never actually, I don’t, I don’t, we didn’t actually take. On the last one on the plan I didn’t know if anybody did you want to comment? Cause it’s technically it’s a public hearing. OK, just making sure.

What, what what do you what do you take something out of this will take up what you’re here for. What is That’s OK. How much longer do you think we have on this? If we take it out of order? Oh no, we’re, we’re in the middle of this, so we’ll

finish this, OK, yeah, I didn’t, I just want to make sure I forgot you didn’t we should talk about whether we’ll even get to the rest of the stuff we have to get to it. No, I’m saying there’s other things on the agenda is going to be discussed? Not, no, not the town center and here it says

the town meeting, um. Yeah, the MBTA and The master plan implementation. Those were other items. Are those coming off the agenda? Well, no, we’re just going to make note that the I think that the town is going to do a two track on the on the compliance and then uh.

Doing something with respect to the unfunded mandate because they met in executive session that we’re not, so we’re not discussing it because we don’t really, we don’t know. No, nothing, no she’s just gonna report what You can go for being here. Thank you. That you had to sit sit through all this

much Sorry. Lose track sometimes. 2 hours on zoning bylaws. All right, so couple just like I said quick thing, so 363 where it says an accessory dwelling unit shall be permitted by right and all zoning districts where single family dwellings are permitted use. Given the EOHLC’s final regulations and the fact that they have a defined term that

is single family residential zoning districts which they define as any district where single family housing is allowed by right or by special permit, you may want to just change this to read an accessory dwelling unit shall be permitted by right in all single-family residential zoning districts. Single family. Residential zoning districts because that’s a term that’s

defined in the regulation. So I have a stupid question, um. Let’s say there was a pre-existing Residents in a non-residential zone. But it’s just grandfathered in. It’s in the wrong zone. So the only district that would apply to for you guys is Well, actually, you allow single families and

Business. It would Yeah. So they would, this would not allow them. Have an idea. OK. Because it’s not a Well, let me, let me, hold on, let me just look real quick here. But you’re making it allow. So you’re you’re making it allowed though on your use table.

Right, that’s what I’m saying is there a contradiction here? Well, then if that’s the case, then you should just say accessories dwelling unit it shall be permitted by right in all zoning districts, period. If that’s what the antenna is like I say, it was a stupid question.

Yeah, no, no, it’s not a stupid question at all. I mean, it’s, it’s two different things, right? You can be more generous. I was referring to the OHLC definition, but if you’re letting, and if you’re gonna amend the table where they’re allowed in every district, you should just say that. So I

would say 36 then should say an accessory dwelling unit shall be inverted by right in all zoning districts, period. Well, is there any exception to that? I guess my concern is if we created a district in the future. was different. Well you, you know, I mean, if you rezone

the town to create new districts, you’re gonna have a lot of things to look at, so. Hm Well, what I, what I, to your point, it’s not a stupid question. It’s a good point. Jonathan is if your use table says yes, yes, yes, business, yes, and that is not a district that normally allow single

family and then in 363 you say. All districts. Where single family then. That’s more restrictive than what you’re used to doing, they should just be consistent, right? That’s what I thought. So right now you’re allowing them in all zoning districts, correct? The only thing I would say is that business districts you

typically wouldn’t want a single-family house. Right, I mean, that’s just not good planning, do we want? Can you take it if that’s what the state says, another way to look at this is do you take it out of the table in the business district. That’s, that’s to me the question that’s that’s well,

we can’t do that because we if we took it out of the business district, we would have to have a Public hearing on that. That’s not one of our proposed amendments. Well, I, I think it becomes a, a, a scope question. I mean right now it’s something that needs a Yeah. I mean, you

could look ahead at that. But it is a, it’s a question. It, it’s something you want to think about. Do we want to allow a single family use in the business district. Well Well Well, you’re not allowing dwelling units. How could you? Wait a minute. Suppose you had, wait, hold on, sorry, right now

you already allow. Single family in your business. So unless you’re gonna have to Marie’s point, a different bylaw amendment that prohibits single families in the business district right now. You have to allow ADUs in the business district. Well, maybe it gets addressed with if, if ever the form-based code happens Right.

But then what you don’t want to do is you don’t you wanna word this in a way that there’s the least amount of ripple effect if you do that. So the fact that you currently allow single families in the business district means you can keep the language that it is there now.

That’s that’s probably the definition because you allow them and if you have some other district in the future where you don’t, you’re fine. That’s probably because of Cummings Avenue. They’re all single family houses there. So remember though, single family can include single family attached. That’s a definition, so you can, you can get a very

urbane feel with a block of single family houses that are technically single family attached houses, row houses, row houses are attached, yeah. Those, I don’t know if those would be considered. They’d probably be considered. That’s actually a definition in the census and, and in architectural books, single family attached, detached. I mean, what you don’t want is

you don’t want an ADU in the front of a business building. Yeah. I, I don’t, I, I vote for going with Robin’s suggestion Well, we’re just gonna change it so it matches the OHLC definition, residential zoning districts and we don’t definition, right, so that was just my little comment because

I thought you might get an AG comment on that, um, and then, so if you go to 365, I think there’s just a typo there, um, 3651. Right now it says only one accessory dwelling unit shall be permitted on each lot containing a principal dwelling, and I think the period should just go after a dwelling.

Don’t say unit, but then right now it just reads single family dwelling. So I think that’s just like a typo that containing a principal where’s the period? dwelling, dwelling I think you should put a period after the word dwelling. But then when it says single family dwelling like it’s a new

sentence, I think that should come out. It’s just a typo. Forget it. OK. I thought we I think it’s just little clean up stuff that maybe didn’t get caught. I was reading it again today. You did it. You’ve crossed it out there. Should it be just a period after single containing a principled

dwelling, I think we always referred to them as dwelling units though containing a principal dwelling unit period. That’s where it is, yeah. You want to keep unit got it. She unit. Right, um, So I had a question in 3. It’s more of a clarification in 3653. But she’s talking about dimensions.

So the last sentence there says when attached to a principal dwelling unit. The attached accessory dwelling shall meet the required setback requirements for the principal. Now An inference someone might draw from that is if it’s detached, it doesn’t need to meet setbacks. I’m not sure you need that sentence. I don’t know that it adds anything if

you’re already saying that the EDU has to meet all the applicable dimensional requirements unless otherwise set forth in this section, that’s it, whether attached or detached. OK, take that last sentence out unless it’s nonconforming though, right? I suppose the is, my opinion is at 4086 still applies if somebody has a nonconforming

structure alterations. I still think they should have to come in and get a finding. I don’t think you should. to do it by special permit, but I still think they should have to get a finding. Because I don’t see anything in regu in UHLC regulations that can alter a statute. Hm That’s my opinion.

Take the last sentence out. I think that was the building inspector’s opinion also. Rich mention it, yeah. Yeah Take the last sentence out. OK, so we’ll take that out. All right, um, Let’s see. You know, I mean, some things I’ve already commented on, I know you’ve chosen to keep them in, so we

don’t have to go through that again. Um, and then just one little thing, the number 13 is the tea in there should be capitalized. Yeah, that was it. And then Marnie, did you say earlier you guys determined you don’t need any of these definitions or what was it

because I think you still want to add the new ADU definition. No, I think that, uh, hold on, I have to find my notes. And then I know I said this before. I was just gonna comment on this concept of the large accessory dwelling unit. There’s still no standards for it. Like you, you it’s, it’s a

special permit, but there’s nothing that like says. Other than your normal special permit criteria, which may be fine. But you don’t have anything extra in case you wanted them. I think you still want the definitions here, this wasn’t one of the ones where we were taking the definitions out on

that one. Like I said, it was OK, so I think I addressed the one issue you had, uh, with the inclusionary housing Trust. You said check the language and I did? Oh yeah, we need I thought we were. Oh, do you have any more on this? No, no, no, no, I

just didn’t, I didn’t realize you were shifting gears so my brain wasn’t falling, I think we I think we think we need and Darcy’s the expert. OK. Um, OK. I don’t know where to start. Why don’t you say I, I move that we were that we recommend inclusion in the warrant and adoption by town meeting in

this form. OK, I move that we include the town, uh, the I move that we. OK. Recommend the inclusion inclusion in the warrant and adoption by town meeting adoption of the proposed ADU changes in this form with regarding the changes in And I think that was good. Second OK, uh Pat Uh, Jonathan Poor. Jonathan, poor Am Darcy

Dale that’s her I Noheaton, Bill Wheaton I and Marie crouch I. So, uh, do we have any left? Let me just be a couple things. So we did the GPOD taking section 4.1 and 4.2 of. Can we do a quick vote on that just in case anybody needs it. Oh, to

take the boat off, take it off that you’re requesting the select board take 412 and 424 off the warrant and to the extent actually that town meeting refer it back to you. I’m sorry, I, I, I follow that you because this is a 485 hearing and it was on the agenda for the hearing that

you’re requesting the select board take it off the warrant and to the extent necessary, the town meeting refer back to you for future consideration. And is this for 4041 and 42 yeah, so this is 41. OK, we want to refer the, um, so you want to take it off the warrant,

uh, 4041 and 42 and refer it back to the uh to have the select board take it off the warrant, and we’ll deal with it later. Yes, that’s fine. Second Second Uh, Pat Norton Norton, Jonathan Poor, Darcy Dale. Darcy Dale. I, that’s her I Bill Wheaton, Bill Wheaton and

Marty Crouch eye. Alright, so Alright, so Yeah, and that’s actually in the warrant and so the only um change to to this is that the Second sentence is removed. And that’s and that’s just uh. Right, so we can vote, uh. To refer this to recommend

to the town meeting do you want me to do this one? I recommend um inclusion in the warrant and adoption by town meeting for um the section on temporary signage. Is that right? Did we get that right, the wording? I know nobody’s here, obviously it’s a public hearing. I didn’t, I mean, I know, is is is is

anyone on the Zoom well is anyone on the Zoom well like. Wants to. You know. Right. OK. OK, so no, no hands raised. Or they can interrupt us. Yes. Just want to make sure people know that. Perfect. OK, so, um, we can take a vote on that. Yep Pat Norton. Jonathan Poor

Jonathan Amal dog with Darcy Dale. Darcy Dale, I. That’s her I Bill Wheaton, Bill Wheaton I and Marie Crouch eye and so the next item is the zoning bylaw definitions and these were the ones recommended by Hitch Maloney. Here. So same motion and again, I don’t have it. ceiling on it. I just had a question because you’re

changing the definition of growth where. You’re not changing the definition of close for residential. We, we did, I believe it’s underneath gross floor area residential. I could put OK I could put a space there. Is it in the way it was in here. All right, then never mind my comment. Yeah, I

wondered why you put that in the way it’s formatted I didn’t catch it. Yeah, you, you probably put a space in or maybe it’s just my eyes. I can, I can recommend a space or something. We can vote on that. We need a motion, but we can definitions yeah. So I

recommend inclusion in the warrant and adoption by town meeting for um the zoning bylaw amendment changes for the definition section. Second, OK, Pat Norton. Daquist, aye. Keep going guys Darcy Dale Beth her eye Billy Marie Crouch E. OK. So we already did, uh, section 3.0 we now need to do the

inclusionary housing by. That’s one. OK, and then you’re gonna come back with the flood plain at some point? Yes. OK. OK. So, I made the, I think you just had the one comment on the inclusionary housing? Do we vote on. Yeah, so we just helping is correct. And the one thing that you already fixed,

which was with the regular bylaw. You have one comment and I fixed it. Your comment was correct. That’s. Yeah, that was my only comment. We already went through this, so that was my only comment was that. OK, so we can, um, we can, um, vote on that. Yeah, I, I don’t, doesn’t seem like anyone in the

zoo. No. I think he’s with the newspaper, so I think there’s a minor I looked it up. OK, um, are we ready for, uh, hold on just a second. It’s just a minor, it’s just a typo, but 8.3. Was for now 5, but you want to cross out the 4.

Point3 you just can’t see it because the actual strike goes through the like goes to where the line and 4 is perpendicular. Yeah. Looks that way. Yeah, I, I can see that. The 4 is underlined. There are 5, you literally where you make the 4 is where the strike through goes it doesn’t look like it’s it’s

like a double line. OK. Well, I have, I, I have that in, and OK. I have that, I have all these, uh, memorandum and I, and I think I fixed it in that so um. Oh, got you. I think that does it all right we’re ready? Yeah. Recommend inclusion in the warrant and adoption by town

meeting for. Um, the zoning bylaw amendment, uh, regarding inclusionary housing bylaw. Second, Um, Pat Norton Pat Norton Pat Norton Pat Norton RCA that’s her I, OK, so I think, I think we’re done with our public hearing. Wow. So do we have to close it? Motion to close the public hearing.

Yes. Motion to close the public hearing. 2. Norton I raise our hands here. Can we just raise our hands. It’s unanimous, OK. Is this yours? OK. Those are your, this is mine. You’ve already said I. We all said I, that’s our. Um, this one’s yours, I think. Oh Sure. So thank you very much, Robin,

your comments have been very helpful. Thank you. Yeah. You don’t need me I make a motion for the floodplain for the floodplain for the floodplain and then you can for the floodplain and then you can. Did she want for the floodplain and then you can, I think.

Did she want for the floodplain and then you can, I think. Did she want I know Madam Chair. If the town wishes to Pursue the same strategy as some other towns on mandated expenditures with the state. Do we need to have a plan. For 3. No. That, that.

Shows that we’ll have to spend money and, you know, and so on. That that’s I don’t think you do as, as opposed to just saying, you know, No, we’re challenging the whole thing. So it’s an unfunded mandate, and I guess the question is what is unfunded? That’s right. And if you look at some of the letters,

it seems, it seems to me it’s actually You know, nicer to the state to say, look, we’ve considered all this, and this is our proposal, and we’re gonna have to build, you know, sewage and water and infrastructure and all these other things which will be somewhere between, you know, X

and Y, and um, you know, therefore, we’re challenging this. Because you’re, you know, meeting your guidelines is going to create an unfunded mandate. And so the letters that have been submitted I’ve seen them have recommendations I’ve seen that and so, so I think then that this is something that the um The select board was an executive

session, so I don’t know what the discussion entailed, but maybe Robin knows. Do you know anything about what constitutes an unfunded mandate. So I mean, how is that defined because I mean an unfunded mandate can be we need to build another school. We need to, to, to get tonight and I’m, I love.

discussions and executive session with the select board. I wouldn’t want you to divulge the executive session discussion here. Well, we don’t know. We weren’t there. So that’s what I’m saying. They discussed the definition of an unfunded mandate, but I don’t know what that is but I, do you

know off the top of your head, how, how the uh I mean, my question is, how can you go to court and say this law is imposing an unfunded mandate on us without, you know, showing some plan that auditor is supposed to come back. So when

you put in your, when you put in the letter to ask if it’s an unfunded mandate. They’re supposed to put in there what you think are the issues and what you think it will cost and some of the towns did that. And then the state auditors supposed to come back with two things. They’re coming back

with a determination, saying it’s an unfunded unit which they have done. They haven’t come back to say what the they’re supposed to come back with a fiscal impact for each. That’s why each town and for me, I would recommend going because you want them to tell you what they think based on what information you’ve given.

There’s like a give and take in that conversation but you put it information forward and then they kind of say, well, this is what we think the fiscal impact is. Based on reading what the whole unfunded mandate is, but they have put that second part on pause cause I think they’re waiting for the state to do

give some. There’s a it’s, yeah, we we shouldn’t do anything to give a financial impact for each town. Is it a time it is. So do do do we know that they’re moving forward. Anything? No, I don’t, I don’t know. I mean, you could, you can go to the state auditor, you can go to the superior

court. I’m just looking to see whether there’s something that we need to do to come up with, you know, these are the acres that we would do in this part of town and oh by the way, there’s no sewage in the school I think more importantly,

there’s no water, so, so to me if you go to the superior quarter you go anywhere, you’re basically the plaintiff and you have to meet your burden of proof and so that means you better have your. experts all lined up. They’re not gonna say they’re not gonna say oh my God, people’s tearing their hair out,

it’s gonna cost so much money they want. Yeah, they want incredible evidence, so I think that that whatever I think it was Amy Quesel spoke to the select board. I’m, I’m sure she, well, I would think that she would have informed them that it’s not just going into the superior court with a hope and

a prayer, you better be prepared to demonstrate with with nons speculative. Evidence uh of what it would cost, but, uh, given the time, I think uh let’s let’s, um, just a quick, can I just quickly the, the, the feedback the senator gave in regards to 3A and, and, and the water use and everything

else and and I’ll be super it’s it. I, I guess he’s initiated an act or whatever you call it, a bill and supported something in, uh, allowing or opening the door for an appeals process for towns, um, trying to give some flexibility to, uh, the, the MBTA community byline and requirements. Um, so they’re,

they’re opening the door. They all, every single one of them expressed the desire for this to be more flexible and uh encouraging the state to take the approach of Working with towns to build more housing versus taking them to court, versus the, uh, there is like things in motion too, I think

in, in many different areas that allow towns more flexibility, but they did all, each one of them, uh, identify that there’s a $200,000 housing, uh, deficit or something like that and um the town should be encouraged to continue on their path of looking at and and working in goodwill to. identify opportunities, even if not, uh, meeting the

requirements of, of the um of the new law, so that is the paraphrasing very much so, uh, the feedback that we were given and, and kind of what they were all describing. Um, and as far as water use goes, that, you know, the these, the uh Senator

Tower gave a um uh uh a reference to the fact that a lot of these people are in the state already and consuming resources. It’s just about providing them housing, but yes, of course, um, this housing need is also a platform for those other infrastructure needs. So it there we already

know there’s issues, um, this is actually further highlighting the fact that there are these issues and that we have an opportunity, uh, as part of the task force in other areas to address them in, in, in the same breath as, as, as the housing issue. So not necessarily one being in

conflict with one another but maybe looking at it in the sense where I you know, I, I’m, it’s puzzling to me because I know it, it with the drought this year that that that. Hamilton was really close to having to open up its emergency access to the Salem Beverly Way. That’s how bad it was, so I.

You know that’s the drought bill. So the drought bill 31 units, uh, you know, if there were a fire. The hose might not run water and so I’m wondering if site plan review, you know, would say you want to build 50 units well, given what our water capacity is, you get 5. I, I, I’m, that’s, that’s a

hypothetical, but I mean, really, uh, our, our, it’s, it’s our water situation is bad and, and there was talk of the Miles River in my recollection is, and I looked at this litigation, um, uh, uh. You know, with respect to the synthetic turf, um, I think that they did some testing, you

know, near the athletic fields in the Miles River, and there was Pihos. Already. Yeah, so I mean one of the wells was closed because of POS. And, uh, you know, there’s a lot of expense associated with just getting the 4. Presently regulated and who knows it could all be unregulated.

Tomorrow, um, but given the volume of POS chemicals that we don’t even test for. Our water supply, if, if we’re drawing it from the Miles River is, is compromised, so I’d encourage anyone if they want to continue the conversation to go to the Charles River Watershed Association, uh, event on April

3rd where, uh, it’s the, it’s the water, it’s the water coalition, uh, lobbying day is hosted at the statehouse and you can talk to whomever you want. OK, so can you send that? I tried to sign up for the event, but they’re already full by the time I got to the Let’s do master plan real quick and

then I don’t know what discussion of 2025 town meeting including any potential business by Madam Chair, I think Mark had, did you have a subject you wanted to cover first? Yeah, it’s, it’s that a, so there is a, the select board included a placeholder in the warrant for a zoning amendment,

which is unusual, but um they do have the authority to sponsor their own remains. So the reason they’ve prioritized this is the um updated the flood maps for Essex County. So the town has to amend its owning within a certain time frame to account for those changes. All right, yeah, and

they, oh. Yeah, um, to update the flood plain flood maps and, and most of the community. With UCR on or with Eric Carlson at DCR on that. Yeah. But, um, I think you’re going to want to get into this war. you’re talking to. You know, it’s only

done quickly because you walk out of a public hearing on it before your April 5th. Yeah, it’s tight, but we could schedule, you could vote tonight to schedule the public hearing for April 1st. And um that would technically be in time to make the warrant. Is it going to be another town

meeting in We don’t know for sure. They, they scheduled a date, but they’re not committed that they’re going to have the town meeting. So we should do this town meeting. I just need it needs to be in the newspaper and they, yeah, and they said people couldn’t get insurance or something if they. So, we

need to address the Hamilton news holding a space for us in case, yeah. And we can, we can talk more about it, but it is, it is something that should. Should be done. Yeah, we’ll, we’ll put it on the agenda for April 1st, so I would just ask for a motion to schedule the

public hearing for April 1st. So moved. Second Had Norton. Hi, Jonathan Poor. Jonathan Poor, taking you out of taking you out of taking you out of taking you out of taking you out of taking you out of You’re good to go and so master plan by Robin, thank you for coming.

Thanks you can talk more about that if you, if you need help. OK, all right. Uh Master plan. Finally. I think we’re in good shape. I really, I would give him a lot of credit for kind of getting us there. Thank you, um, yeah. I think we can finally get that on the website and uh

start the implementation process. Great, great. So thank you, Amal. You’re welcome. What a process. Oh, we moved to. Just say your name and I I I. That’s right. Dali and Marty crouch I so well we did it we got a lot of, we got a lot of work done. Well, we did a lot

of work this fall. Really? That