00:02:34,330	Regulatory process. I do not follow that at all. So we’re ready. Hey, how’s it going? Uh, one second. Yes. Great. Yeah. Okay. We’re good. We are good. Yeah. We’re good. Okay. Um, it’s seven. Seven. Seven, 18 p.m.. And I’m calling the August 4th Hamilton Planning Board meeting to order.

00:03:13,870	Uh, this meeting is being recorded by H.W. Camm, and I will begin by calling roll. So when you when I call your name, would you please indicate that your present. Jonathan. Poor Jonathan, poor present. Bill Wheaton. Bill Wheaton. Present. Emil Dahlquist. Emil Dahlquist, present. Valerie. Peck. Valerie Peck, present. Jeff. Austin. Jeff. Austin, present.

00:03:34,630	Imani. Crouch, present. Uh, I know that Darcy Dale and Matt Hamill will not be present. They advise me they were unable to attend. I don’t know about Beth. Her? She may appear momentarily. So the first item on our agenda is approval of the minutes from August 1st.

00:03:58,100	Um, is there any discussion about these minutes? I have a comment. Um, I would like to strike line six from paragraph three that says J4 cautioned the applicants not to rely simply on paving contractors to design the improvements. That might have been an interesting thing to remember, but it was not the most germane.

00:04:21,230	And I have what I think ought to be there. I can read it. I also have a typed up. Excuse me, Jonathan, I can’t hear you. Sure. Okay. Better. So I got the one sentence to delete.

00:04:41,930	So what I’d like to add is J poor was concerned about how tight the front yard space was in relation to creating a driveway with a practical and safe turning radius. He also pointed out that a small circular driveway such as this becomes effectively blocked when one vehicle is parked in it, forcing other cars to attempt to backup in a tight radius and potentially back into traffic. That was the more, more germane comment than don’t. Don’t use your paving contractor.

00:05:01,700	Could you, um, could you. Give I have it typed here. I could just give it to. Mark because I had just a few minor corrections. Uh, there was Asbury Road. It’s Asbury Street that’s in the first paragraph under land use, two applications and just a few very minor typos. And that’s it.

00:05:24,670	So should I give this to Mark? Would I just. Okay. Does anyone else have any corrections or comments? Um, then I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes from July 21st. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Second. All in favor? I. I.

00:05:57,200	Uh, I just I will note that, um, after the meeting, I, I emailed Mark and and it occurred to me that at no point did the planning, the planning board was neither asked to waive any of the provisions of the zoning bylaw with respect to driveways. Uh, we were not asked to do it, and we did not do so.

00:06:19,670	So even though we approved this proposed circular driveway, the applicant still have to comply with the applicable provision of the zoning bylaw with respect to driveways and that turning radius. So that might be a further impediment to their going forward with that plan. Unless they can demonstrate that compliance. So we gave them the authority.

00:06:45,900	But whether they will be able to comply with that provision of the zoning bylaw is another issue that that they’ll have to confront, um, with the building inspector, or. That was one of the reasons I wanted to correct the minutes accordingly. Right, right. So I think the result is pretty much consistent with everyone’s concerns.

00:07:07,670	Um, however, you know, I don’t think that under the circumstances, we had a really grounds to just flat out deny that, uh, that request. So I’ll give the minutes, as with my minor corrections to Mark, and then the next item on our agenda is a discussion with Harbor Light Homes.

00:07:32,800	Uh, regarding Asbury Commons and the lottery and local preference. So, Mark, I know you’re familiar with this. If you want to go ahead and introduce the representative from Harbor Light Homes. Sure. So, uh, we have us with us today and a sidekick, senior operations manager for Harbor Light Homes. And Andrew de Francia, the executive director of Harbor Light Homes.

00:07:55,730	Um, and the reason we started a little bit later today was because they had an information session in this room on the lottery process for the the Asbury Common Development, which is the development currently under construction on Asbury Street.

00:08:13,470	Um, and I thought it made sense since they were kind of here in the neighborhood to have them present to you on the lottery. Um, this is a fully affordable development. So all the units will be will go through the lottery. Um, and there are some interesting sort of aspects of it, including a local preference, which Anna will discuss with you.

00:08:32,070	Um, this application went through the state’s 40 B process, so it was approved, didn’t go through the planning board, at least for through a regulatory mechanism. It went fully through the zoning board, which the state requires for 40 B projects. So it might be helpful to get a little bit of background on the development itself.

00:08:49,230	And I think, you know, briefly, uh, cover that as well. Great. Oh, and if you could just hold your questions until the end of her presentation, it should be about 15 to 20 minutes. Great. Thanks, Mark. Um, will you be my slideshow or share? Awesome. So thank you. For those of you who don’t know.

00:09:08,330	My name is Anna Siddique. I’m the senior operations manager for Harbor Light. I’m also Harbor Light certified lottery agent, which is a state designation that allows us to conduct lotteries in accordance with state and federal regulations. So I’m really excited to be here and explain how we do the lotteries. And a little bit about Asbury common.

00:09:25,230	For those who don’t know. Um, in the interest of your time, I’m going to go pretty quickly. These slides will be available. They can be emailed to you. They’re going to be publicly available. And I’m always happy to answer follow up questions.

00:09:37,530	So I’ll try to get through them because I know you have a pretty full agenda. So, uh, what you see here is a rendering of Asbury Common from the middle of the parking lot. Um, the intention here is to have a two story building that sort of blends seamlessly into some of the existing surroundings. Next slide mark. Sure, I’ll go quickly.

00:09:54,300	Um, if you don’t know, Harbor Homes is a non-profit community development corporation. We build and manage affordable housing for seniors, families, disabled and homeless populations throughout Essex County. We advocate for just and equitable communities because we believe everyone deserves a home. These are some examples of some smaller projects over the years. Next slide.

00:10:14,000	Um, so right now we actually have quite a number of of current properties. We have senior housing in the communities. You can see there, including Maple Woods down in Wenham opened a couple of years ago. If you haven’t been back there, it’s also 45 units, so same size as Asbury Common. Uh, we also have senior supportive housing in Beverly and Rockport.

00:10:29,000	Family and individual other communities across the North Shore, including in Hamilton. A little shout out to the Accord Food Pantry. Um, if any of you know firehouse place, that’s one of our properties. And accord is an amazing tenant.

00:10:42,800	And we also have four residential units above that space. We have a lot of things coming up in the pipeline. So Asbury Common is one of many that’s under construction right now. We also have permitted projects brewing in Ipswich, Salem, a couple in Gloucester, different sizes, Lynn, and then right across from Market Basket.

00:10:59,100	If you’ve been wondering what’s going on next to Market Basket, that’s also a Harbor Light development. That’s when we’re crossing up in Raleigh. Um, that will be 25 family and senior homes. And that is also under construction right now. So taken together, we’re in 11 different communities across the North Shore.

00:11:15,400	We have over 1000 residents. We also have more than 2500 people on our waiting list. So the need is urgent. As ever. Um, we have over 760 current residents. And one line I want to point out here, because I know it’s often come up in community conversation is in the middle.

00:11:32,700	We’ve paid over $6 million in local property taxes. That will be true of Asbury Common as well. We actually will be paying our portion of of taxes into the community. But we do that everywhere we go because we understand that that’s an important sticking point for a lot of communities. So I wanted to highlight that next slide.

00:11:47,930	Okay. So here’s another rendering of Asbury Common from a different side of the building. Um, it’s up at 461 Asbury. Just next to counter Brook. There will be one, two and three bedroom units, 45 total. There will be units for Ada accessibility and hearing impairment. And in total, that will accommodate households between 1 to 6 people.

00:12:07,430	We’ve got two different income limits working the 30% Ami and 60% Ami. As Mark said, all 45 units are affordable. Um, we will also accept any housing vouchers. If someone were to have a mobile voucher. Section eight MRP veterans voucher will take all of those. There is a local preference.

00:12:25,800	At the time of the lottery, only for applicants who live, work or have children who attend public school in the regional school district. Um, you don’t have to work for the town of Hamilton. You just have to work in the town of Hamilton. And we applied for 31 units, which works out to be 68%.

00:12:43,230	That’s the state maximum for local preference coming into the lottery. So this is a really amazing opportunity for Hamilton residents. Um, specifically, or people who work in town or who have kids in the district, which by default almost makes it local preference for one as well. For the family units.

00:13:00,070	But technically it’s limited to the town of Hamilton. There are five units that will be reserved for homeless families, and those will be supported by permanent project based subsidies.

00:13:17,130	And then we have two units that are a fulfillment of requirement of the 3% priority program, and those will be referred to us in filled through the mass ability process, which is sort of a separate concurrent pipeline. The rent itself will include free on site parking and all your basic utilities heat, electricity, water, um, trash. I can’t wait to see the size of our recycling barrels. Just as a side note, um, the, uh.

00:13:39,130	But if a resident wanted, you know, cable or Wi-Fi or something in their unit, those would not be covered in the rent. Those would be a resident discretion. So. Okay, next slide. Um, the property itself has a lot of amenities. And this is sort of a really cool rendering of what we expect the community garden to be looking like.

00:13:55,470	If you’re familiar with that landscape, the mature trees that you see to the right, those would be the same mature trees that exist on Asbury Street. Now, all of those will be remaining. So, um, this is sort of looking south from the brick end side of it. There will be car operated laundry on every floor. The heat and AC are individually controlled.

00:14:10,530	A variety of outdoor amenities playground, basketball court, walking path, gardens, um furnished terraces, great views. There’ll be community room for parties. So somebody wanted to have a birthday party or a family gathering that will be available.

00:14:27,600	Um, and then just like every property, property we have on site, resident service coordinators, onsite property management, we do all of our own maintenance with 24 over seven availability on call and after our service. Um, the units themselves are built for durability and for design. So they’ll have tile, bathrooms, large windows, wood plank floors, everything, modern kitchen, and obviously close to downtown Hamilton.

00:14:47,330	Shops and restaurants and major corridors. Next slide. Um, this one I know is is of great importance to this community. Um, there’s a lot of climate resilient design features of this building. This is Harbor White’s first ever passive house building. Really exciting for us in terms of sustainability and design.

00:15:05,230	Um, but in terms of other amenities, all the landscaping will be native and drought resistant, drought tolerant plants, uh, the existing trees will remain. We knew that was really important. We’ve minimized the lawn and turf areas, um, to the sort of minimal that would be required in a building like this. The fire lane is going to be constructed from grass pavers.

00:15:23,130	So it’s not a paved fire lane. We also did that at Maple Woods, uh, in conjunction with the London Fire Department. And it’s very cool. You can see how the truck could get around the building, but what you actually see is grass as far as the pavement.

00:15:36,000	Um, all of the exterior light fixtures are lead in dark sky compliant. Um, all the heating and cooling is going to be electric heat pump, uh, with variable refrigerant and right sizing equipment, plumbing fixtures, water sense energy star appliances, um, roof mounted solar.

00:15:54,600	And then we’ll come with two EV charging stations and 14 more that are EV ready. So, um, a lot of thought went into the design and partnership with SV and our, our environmental design and civil engineers and whatnot to really make a beautiful landscape. So next slide.

00:16:12,800	This is a rendering of the community room like the common lobby sort of area. And an example of what a one bedroom apartment would look like. Most one bedrooms are going to come in around 720ft. Next slide. That would be a two bedroom configuration, two bedroom side by side kitchen and bath. And the next one is our three bedroom.

00:16:30,700	And that’s a rendering of what the interior of a three bedroom unit would look like. Um, so three bedroom and two baths for those. The other ones are two bedroom, one bath, one bedroom, one bath. Next slide. Okay, this is an example of the unit mix and the income limits. So here you can see there are 45 units.

00:16:48,530	That breaks down to ten one bedroom units 252 bedroom units and ten three bedroom units. And again you have those two different income levels. So the first line of each side are those 30% Ami limits. And in that situation the resident would pay 30% of their gross income, regardless of what that income might be.

00:17:06,400	Um, the rest of the rent would be subsidized by a project based voucher. We received, uh, eight section eight and eight vouchers for the entire building. So you can see those distributed across the unit mix.

00:17:24,400	If it’s then second line down where there’s no subsidy, there’s a min and a max Wren and those tract to the maximum allowable rent, which is again a number set by HUD that we use. So the high number you see is the maximum allowable. And then we discount that to 85% of max to sort of create a range that gives more opportunity for more people to qualify.

00:17:41,000	Um, so that’s what you see then represented with the minimum and maximum income. So this is how the unit mix kind of works out in terms of the income limits. Next slide okay. So this is the the lottery process which I’ve been led to believe is sort of where we are. The most questions might come up.

00:17:58,700	So within this pool, um, there are two different groups. There’s the local pool which again will include anyone who lives or works in Hamilton or has kids in the regional school district. And then the open pool, which includes all of those same people as well as everyone else. So again, not every unit has that local preference.

00:18:14,770	If the local preference goes unfilled, um, we have 35 units available, but let’s say we don’t put that many local applicants. Then those units will just be offered to the open pool. So it’s really on sort of the residents of Hamilton, if you want to apply, this is your best opportunity to apply.

00:18:30,600	If we don’t get enough applicants for the local pool, they’ll become open pool by default. So where we are now, as at step number one, we are receiving applications. We are giving everyone a unique lottery number to protect their privacy.

00:18:44,070	And then we’ll be dividing everyone into those two pools. On the day of the lottery, we will draw everyone, draw the local pool. Everyone gets the number, draw the open pool, everyone gets a number. And then after that, we actually award the units based on different preferences. So the easiest way to to think of that is like the Ada preference.

00:19:00,770	Let’s say Mark was in my lottery and he had Ada preference and he was drawn at number 400. He might think to himself, well, I’ll never get a unit. I was drawn at number 400, but with a preference. You might be the highest person who needed that two bedroom Ada unit.

00:19:18,100	So the number itself gets everyone in sort of a rough order, but then a preference could move someone higher based on if they had that preference in effect. So that’s true for the Ada units, the hearing impaired, the CBH, the homeless and those local preference units for the units that have that correspondence, everything else will go to the open pool.

00:19:34,600	And then ultimately the long term waitlist will be created from the open pool number. So if again, Mark was in the lottery, he had a local number and an open number.

00:19:50,600	Once the unit that’s once every unit is filled the first time and the building reaches stabilized occupancy, the long term waitlist comes from that open pool number, and that’s the number that prevails. Um, and then after that, we’ll just keep accepting applicants and we will run the building like we run any other building.

00:20:07,270	So the lottery process is sort of this unique snapshot, and its real purpose is the creation of a waitlist and the awarding of units in a way that meets state and federal fair marketing and affirmative marketing. So I think next. Okay. Key dates. Um, we’re here on August 4th. We just finished our second public information session. Um, the most important number here. The date is September 1st.

00:20:28,100	So September 1st is the final deadline to apply with all of your supporting documents. That would be, um, in person in our offices. It can be postmarked by that date, emailed to us or faxed to us, as long as we get it at any time. On September 1st, it will be received on time.

00:20:46,070	If someone said something to us in September, second, even if it’s the most perfect application you could imagine, it will be late and they will not be entered into the lottery. So this is a very hard and fast deadline. The lottery itself will be on October 6th, right here in this room. Then we’ll move into the lease up period. Um, over the winter.

00:21:00,470	And then hopefully if construction holds, we’ll be looking for occupancy next April. That’s sort of what our hope is. Next slide. Mark. Um, I was going to skip over this set of questions because they’re long and they’re sort of really intended for applicants. But if anybody has um, we we can come back to it.

00:21:20,270	So the first one is why are there multiple rents for the same unit type? Next slide. Um, why is there a minimum income. Are any units age restricted? The answer there is no. That’s good for everyone to know. Uh, do children have to share a bedroom? Uh, next slide.

00:21:36,800	What if someone has no income? The asset limit is sort of an important question, but deeply technical. I’m happy to go through how the assets are calculated in. But I don’t want to waste your time with things that may not be germane to this board. Go ahead. Mark, um, this is a fun one.

00:21:52,030	I’ll put this one out. We’ve got this question enough that I’ve put it on the FAQ is that I like to go away for the winter. Can I sublease or rent out my apartment or operate it as an Airbnb? And the answer is no. But we’ve actually had people ask us that before. It has to be your principal, full time residents.

00:22:07,770	Pets are not allowed, but service and emotional support animals are. Um. There’s an FAQ about overnight guests. I think we’re almost done with this. Um, this might be a good one to explain the household size, the number of people in each unit corresponds to the state sanitary code.

00:22:26,670	So in the open market, you might see, you know, eight people in a two bedroom. Well, a private landlord can do that if they so care. And they don’t want to enforce the sanitary code. But in reality, the state sanitary code governs how many people can share a bedroom. And that’s relative to square footage and occupancy.

00:22:40,330	So the current standard is you have to have 50ft per bedroom per person. So if your bedroom is only 120ft, you can only have two people in that bedroom. You couldn’t overload it. So household size is a direct relation to the sanitary code.

00:22:57,600	And that’s the guidance that we’re using to determine that a one bedroom could have 1 or 2 people, two bedrooms, it could be 2 to 4. Three bedroom was going to max out at six people. Um, the same is true the opposite direction. You can’t have someone have an extra playroom or an office, or a yoga studio, or a crafting room or whatever you might have.

00:23:12,930	It’s all about heads on pillows. So again, state regulations require at least one person per bedroom. So again, the unit sizes and occupancy go together with those regulations. Next slide. And then that is that is the end of my part of this. Um people can apply going online to download the application.

00:23:33,730	They can email us. We’ll have you happily send them to to them over email. Or they can get one in person at our office at Town Hall. Mark has a big pile somewhere up there in the main lobby, and also on the second floor of the library. We have applications and flyers.

00:23:48,170	Um, we have them in four different languages to start. But if anyone needed another language, we’re happy to do translation. And I left you a little gift on your table, a copy of the English version flyer, as well as the application that’s in use for people right now.

00:24:03,670	That concludes my presentation. That was pretty fast. Is that good? Right on target. I would, I would I would comment that I was here when we were designing these with you, and they certainly have come out a lot nicer than we originally were dealing with. Right.

00:24:25,130	Um, I do have one question which you might have answered a couple of years ago when we were going through this, which was where you get your capital, is it light tech? Um, yeah. So so there’s a variety of sources. This is fundamentally a light tech fund. Okay. I like it 9%.

00:24:42,230	So there’s actually I anticipated this question. So I printed out so I would have it. So there’s both state and federal tech. There’s some federal solar tax credit. There’s some federal home loan bank um grants. There’s a passive house incentive. There’s a massive incentive. There’s about seven flavors of home funding, including local home from the town of Hamilton.

00:24:59,130	And then there’s a variety of state funds, the Housing Stabilization Fund, HIF Affordable housing trust fund, CBH funding, National Housing Trust Fund. And then locally there’s some Town of Hamilton home. There’s some town of Hamilton, CPC, some town of Hamilton affordable housing Trust.

00:25:21,000	Those local sources combined totaled $800,000 directly from the town of Hamilton, which we’re very grateful for. But the bulk of the funding is coming through latex, latex. What is your average turnover rate with respect to the apartments? Uh. Supper. What’s the stake? Pardon me? At least up or once it’s stabilized. Once it’s stabilized. I would say on average, maybe 2 to 3 a year.

00:25:44,470	Um, our overall turnover is actually very, very low. Uh, we see a little more turnover at some of the family properties. Um, and we do see some turnover at the senior properties, but usually it’s because someone’s gone to a nursing home or they passed away, but the overall rate is less than 10% in terms of

00:25:58,700	overall turnover. Um, once people get an apartment they can afford and a landlord that they like who takes care of the building, we don’t have a ton of turnover within the properties. Um, one other question.

00:26:20,870	And I don’t know how accurate my recollection is, but will there be sidewalks along Asbury Street? Because I worry about the children? Um, yeah. Mark, that question came up at the select board, too, and I think we looked it up that I might defer back to you because you’ve already gotten the answer to that one. Time there was a condition in the CPA approval.

00:26:34,730	They have to contribute a certain amount of money, but it would be a town project. So the town has to take on that project. Um. But our percentage was was it 60%? It was a set amount of money. It was it wasn’t. A person. Um, so I think that’ll be a discussion item in the next budgeting session. But. Right.

00:26:53,370	Because, you know, I imagine there’ll be quite a number of children, uh, in, in these units. And as you know, uh, the traffic on Asbury, um, it it moves pretty fast. It does not adhere to the speed limit. Yeah.

00:27:13,330	I’ll be curious to see the final number of kids, because, of course, the one bedrooms without an age restriction could go to either single young people, or we’ve already had a huge number of seniors apply as well. So I think the one bedrooms might be a mix of very young people and seniors, and then the two and three bedroom units can really vary.

00:27:28,870	I mean, our most the reason they’re the most number of units at that two bedroom level is that’s the most popular common in in demand. And that usually is like a couple or a parent with a child or maybe two children.

00:27:43,370	But again, the occupancy would be capped at if it was, if it was a parent with kids, it would only be two kids, right? You wouldn’t. So I think it’s I think we’re gonna have to wait and see. Um, and then sometimes we have configurations, uh, that would surprise you. So at Anchor Point two, for example, we have a three bedroom that is filled with three sisters who are all seniors.

00:27:58,670	They all wanted to live together. So you would think, wow, it’s going to be a lot of kids. It’s actually not. It’s three sisters and it’s kind of adorable. Um, so you just never know. You know what might be true, but that’s that’s something we’ll track carefully.

00:28:14,070	Well, I mean, it is it is a concern because of the nature of the traffic. There.. Is there an on site management office and a project of this size? There is, and it’s, um, occupied, uh, weekly, seven days. So typically for this unit we’ll probably assign it again. This is not entirely my lane because I’m not property management.

00:28:34,330	But our customer allocation is we’d have one person who would share time between here and maybe one other site. So they might spend like mornings here and afternoon somewhere else, or Monday, Wednesday, Friday, all day here, Tuesday, Thursday somewhere else. So there’ll be a dedicated office for the property manager.

00:28:49,830	That would also be a dedicated space for the resident services coordinator, um, which is someone who would help people arrange for meal service or if they needed to get a benefit card, or they needed to arrange for transportation to a doctor.

00:29:04,930	Um, sometimes, especially at family properties, we might have outside tutors come in, so they would help coordinate any sort of support services for the residents. They’ll have a dedicated space as well. Um, we wouldn’t have a full time person just for 45 minutes, but we might have one property manager that does this building and maple woods or this building and a combination of other buildings. So. But there will be a physical space within the building.

00:29:23,970	Is there any kind of creative way to have some sort of shuttle service for folks to get downtown or to the train station? Yeah, that’s part of what we do with Resident Services. So I know, like sometimes we contract with Beauport at different sites to move people around or Cape Ann transit.

00:29:39,530	And then sometimes we bring the services in. But that’s something like resident services could coordinate that. Um, I suppose we could try to arrange for some sort of stop, but at the moment it’s a little bit more of a contract.

00:29:51,730	So I think at our senior properties, for example, there’s a weekly schedule where, you know, there’s a trip going to the grocery store and we’ll have people come do that. Um, I know what Maple woods, uh, a food pantry actually comes on site there once a week and does like a mobile market. Um, at the property. So it’s a combination. So, yes. Possible.

00:30:08,800	Um, but I think we’d have to work it out with the transportation companies directly. There’s a lottery system, uh, administered by a third party, or, you know, you do it yourself. No, it’s me. What’s that? Randomization. Look, it’s like a bingo ball. Ball? What’s that? Randomization look like? What is the what? Randomization of the lottery.

00:30:27,670	Typically it’s fully a lottery. I have a clear glass jar and everyone has a paper ticket. The state is actually very prescriptive about how it happens. So the local pool is printed in one color. Tickets and the open pool were in a different color. It’s like a fishbowl.

00:30:43,030	It’s literally I’m glad you asked, actually, because I purposely bought a clear glass bowl with a gasket lid at a wooden top so you can see through it, but with the gasket you can shake it vigorously and the tickets won’t pop out. And we have to do everything recorded because people are viewing it.

00:30:56,930	So there’ll be a glass bowl and then the person drawing the tickets will pull a ticket out, and then they’ll read the number and then show the number. Um, well that’s happening. We have one person recording what the draw number was, and then we have two of us recording the order itself.

00:31:13,070	So we sort of have this redundant system, but it’s literally a paper lottery. Um, I suppose we could use golf balls or something that would be more expensive than paper tickets. But the state actually, that’s part of the lottery agent training is how to do a lottery in a way that meets their regulations. And that is the answer. So it’s.

00:31:26,700	Yeah, if by chance, one of those applicants that was selected bowed out, how do you fulfill that? So that happens all the time. How do you feel that spot another lottery or. No that’s why. So the lottery you draw everyone who applied not just their first 45. Okay.

00:31:40,700	So the waitlist comes from that. So at the end of the lottery I’ll have an ordered list of 500 people. We’ll know who are the first group. But then, um, it’s very often people drop out either because they’ve moved, they’ve changed their mind, maybe their situations change, their family size, like for any number of reasons.

00:31:59,400	Also, sometimes, especially for more transient families or families that are in shelters or families in a domestic violence situation, we can’t find them again. So every so often someone will apply and be in the lottery, and then we’ll go to contact them and it will come back to us returned.

00:32:12,130	So we can’t hold the unit forever. Um, we typically do outreach 3 or 4 different ways than if we don’t hear from someone. We have to move on because we have to fill the unit.

00:32:27,230	So if somebody bows out, we’ll just go to the next person who would have been in line based on that long draw order at the lottery. And you mentioned the local preference was Hamilton, but there’s some nuance there with when and because we shared school system. Right. So if you live in the town of Hamilton, work in the town of Hamilton, not four, but in um, or if you have kids in the regional school district.

00:32:41,470	So in theory, if someone was living in one of them but has their kids in the district, they’re eligible, they would be eligible because their child is in the public school system, even though they live in Wenham or somewhere else. And that’s not just government employees. That’s anyone who works, I believe part time employees as.

00:33:01,400	Well, and anyone who has a pay stub that they can produce for me to show that they regularly work in the town of Hamilton would meet that criteria. So anybody from Crosby’s or anybody. Yeah.

00:33:19,270	Strictly speaking, if I’m someone who was, say, an Uber driver and based out of Hamilton, you know, sort of like a like a gig economy type person, I guess would be living Hamilton. Um, but you just have to substantiate what local preference is. And that’s outlined on the application.

00:33:38,100	So it’s school enrollment, um, a tax bill, a lease, pay stubs or voter registration are the acceptable forms of local verification. I think that’s page 4 or 5 of the app. So no minimum hours of employment. You could just. Know it could be it could be like one day a week. You could work one day a week at CVS.

00:33:49,530	But you are coming into the town of Hamilton to work in the town of Hamilton. So you would meet that that threshold. Well, if you know what questions, thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Yeah. Like I said, the slides will be available. Mark has them. They’ll be on our website. Um, you have the paper materials and my contact information is there.

00:34:10,800	So believe it or not, I love answering questions about the lottery. And for me personally, I’m really excited to see this one get off the ground. So if anyone on the board has questions or anyone watching at home has questions, just reach out. Um, we’re happy to help. I’m sure you’re working with the Affordable Housing Trust as well.

00:34:26,630	Yes, they are well aware. I’ve offered to present to them as well. Um, I’m not sure if that’s actually on the books yet or not, but I know that they’re aware this is happening. I think it will be shortly. Yes. Yeah. They’re aware.

00:34:41,600	Um, at least one member of the trust came to one of our public information sessions as well, in person. So and I presented to the select board on the 20th. Um, so that’s also out there in the public as well. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

00:34:58,100	All right. So the next item on our agenda is the amendment to the Hamilton master plan. And so, um, you should see in your packet, um, the actual amendment to the master plan and consistent with Jonathan’s suggestion at our last meeting, um, I developed an appendix D, um, which follows the three

00:35:31,270	prior appendices, uh, for amendments to the master plan. So this is the First Amendment, and perhaps in the future there will be others. Uh, at some point when the planning board may have a lull in the action, we could go through the master plan and in particular, um, the different implementation charts

00:35:57,400	and, uh, amend them to reflect, um, uh, items that have been accomplished that can be deleted. Uh, although I’m not sure that would really be necessary.

00:36:23,070	But if we want to add to this master plan, uh, for example, with a good idea like this, uh, uh, dark sky bylaw, we can then do it just by adding up to, uh, appendix D. So you’ll see, uh, there’s one uh, it’s not a typo, but there is in one E um, just two words that are in in red. I had, uh, sent this to Amel, and he did suggest that I, I add to control, glare and trespass.

00:36:55,600	So if you could correct that and send it to Mark. Um, take out the red. I tried to do it, but I couldn’t do. Okay. Um, but it’s just a general, um, a general notion of what we intend to do. Nothing specific yet. We have a lot of work to do.

00:37:14,870	Um, before we actually, um, present the dark sky bylaw to, uh, the town for inclusion on the warrant and consideration by the residents. Is anyone on zoom? Um. To address this, uh, amendment to the, uh, master plan? Nope. No.

00:38:09,830	So, um, is there any discussion about this? Do you want to vote on this amendment? Yes. Um, there is a dark Sky committee. Yes. So that’s Andrew Rowe and Cathy Simons, and I know they’re working with other people. And so they’ve also had discussions with businesses in the community.

00:38:33,300	So I expect at some point to, uh, put an item on our agenda to see actually where they are and what they recommend. And then we can also look at other communities. I know Rockport, uh, just, um, uh, adopted a dark sky. By law. I’m not precisely sure of its status.

00:38:58,930	I heard it on the radio, so, uh, but apparently, yeah, I think National Grid was offering the community, um, some type of lighting, and it was quite bright and not really consistent with the, uh, uh, provisions of the, um, dark sky, uh, community. And so the town rejected the gift from National Grid and adopted a dark sky bylaw. So communities are doing this more and more. That’s a question for Mark.

00:39:26,170	Do you, uh, do you know if the town leases its, uh, traffic lights or has purchased them? I believe we own them. Okay. Our street lights. Don’t quote me on that, because I don’t know for sure, but I believe so. I can. Check with it. But many times do lease and, um.

00:39:50,730	But, you know, whoever the electrical organization is, in this case, National Grid, many times it would be, uh, would replace the luminaires with, with a different one. I mean, that’s down the line, but I’m just curious whether we own those for public parking areas, for the streets, for the. You think that we do. Certainly the ones that aren’t on utility poles we own.

00:40:13,100	I’m not sure about the utility pole ones. In shopping. Centers or. Something in private shopping centers. Uh, yeah. Or like the so the lighting in Patent Park is obviously all town lighting. Um, if you see a fixture that’s not connected to a pole, it’s town lighting.

00:40:33,630	But the, the pole lighting, I’m not sure if it’s leased by the utility or the town owns it. Um, Marnie, when, uh, under resources needed volunteer hours and coordination. I’m sorry. What? What is what is that entail? When you’re that. Well, as you can see from Andrew Rose, uh, you know, uh, to me, there is a, a steering committee.

00:41:01,200	So, uh, uh, Andrew and Kathy Simons and others are quite serious about this, so I’m hoping we can establish a dialogue with them and they can give us, um, the benefit of their research, because one of the one of the questions is whether or not this ordinance should be a general bylaw or whether it should be a zoning

00:41:23,070	bylaw. I think I mentioned this at the last meeting. Uh, obviously it should extend to commercial businesses. Uh, and the question is, should it be mandatory for, uh, single family homes, should it be mandatory for condominiums? Um, and I was thinking about this, um, earlier today.

00:41:54,470	Should there be some provisions so that people can, uh, address really egregious lighting from their neighbors? And, um, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but one of my neighbors has a really bright light that just, you know, at night shines right into my house. And it isn’t as if I have close neighbors. So. But then the bylaw has to act retrospectively, right? Yeah.

00:42:17,500	You can’t in that respect it. Yeah. Okay. But whether or not there can be some mechanism where individual property owners can, you know, go to their neighbors and say, could you please turn that light off, you know, at 10:00? Do you really need it on all night long? You know, that

00:42:33,730	those garage lights, you know, over the garage, it’s really bright. You just when you drive home, start looking at some of the lighting fixtures that are just like, wow, do you really need that much light? Or could we, you know, just. Maybe we should have lighting, police. Lighting police. Well, we we just.

00:42:57,500	I’m I’m, I’m concerned that the bylaw have a process, right, whereby people can get exemptions. I’m thinking of, you know, safety issues at intersections and certain things where, um. They’re always exceptions. Right. But but, I mean, the mean we we’re not going to address the exemptions.

00:43:21,870	What we’re going to do is write a bylaw that has a like an appeals process or some process by which people. Also a window, at which point, like a business would have to comply. And that might be five years. So nobody has to go out and like eliminate their existing lighting and replace it right away.

00:43:42,000	There’s a grace period usually involved in these things to let people, um, you know, understand what is required. And then given normal maintenance or whatever, they can replace their inappropriate fixtures with better ones within that grace period.

00:44:03,230	But no one would have to on the day the attorney general approved the bylaw, assuming it was a zoning bylaw, go out and have to spend thousands of dollars to replace it wouldn’t pass. It would be that simple. It would. It probably would be unlikely to pass. What’s kind of oh, go ahead.

00:44:21,930	I was going to say what’s interesting in ironic is that a lot of folks think that you can either choose dark Sky or you can choose safety. And that’s kind of incorrect. That’s a myth. That’s incorrect. Um, if you study glare and, um, night vision safety when there is glare, it actually creates much greater safety problems than when there’s good cutoff angles.

00:44:40,070	So to have an exemption, you know, I’m just using this as an example to have an exemption that says we need more safety in this area. So the light needs to spread around.

00:44:58,370	That isn’t isn’t the safe approach to lighting because glare creates hot spots and dark spots because of the simultaneous, um, contrast that your eye can’t handle. So anyway, it’s just an interesting irony that some folks don’t realize, right? And that that presentation by this, uh, Mr.

00:45:18,530	Beatty that was here in this, uh, in this very room addressed that exact issue, you know, so there there’s so many, uh, uh, aspects to this. So I don’t think we’re going to be able to, to just write a bylaw within a month or two. I think we have to see what the steering committee comes up with.

00:45:39,870	Look at what other communities have done and and how long it took them to get their bylaws adopted and just see the the different approaches that have been taken. I think on Nantucket, they have a very, very stringent dark sky bylaw, but that would be kind of a unique case, I think. I mean, that, uh, but elsewhere it’s it will it really depends on, um, the community involvement.

00:46:01,800	But I think there’s from what I in speaking with Anne, uh, she, she seems to think there is community acceptance of this. It’s when you learn more about it, it becomes very, um, very understandable and also something. That and maybe that’s the first step in the process is some education.

00:46:23,100	Absolutely. Okay. So if we have a motion, uh, that’d be great. So you look for a motion to, for this amendment in appendix D, amendment one to continue this study. Uh, well, to add it to I’m looking for an amendment to the master plan. You add another. 2.2.1, as well as one e this action item.

00:46:59,370	And then the appendix. Okay. And the A and to B and to create an appendix D to reflect this amendment. Okay. I think I’d like to make it a motion that uh, 4.2.1 protect under National Natural Resources. Uh, be amended to the master plan, the 2024 master plan as action item one E uh, as stated on the.

00:47:29,300	And the. Are you moving in appendix D to. Appendix D is added and so. Well, okay. And appendix D, right. Which would be the Dark Skies bylaw. Right. Second. All in favor. Aye. I. Unanimous. Great. So that’s something to study. So um, the next item on our agenda.

00:48:01,930	Is a discussion of planning board priorities. So. I made a list of planning board priorities, which does contain a typo. Sorry. Um, in the caption. That’s neither here nor there. So these these are not I mean, there are list of potential priorities, but they’re not in any order. So we could. Uh, these are handouts. Yeah, I could run it around over there.

00:48:32,830	Yeah. I’ll get this one to Valerie. Okay. Correct. My typo. Come on. Yeah. Um, just as an aside to the dark, um, sky, um, amendment. Um, I’m, um, offering my time if it’s needed at all to help with the steering committee or anything like that. As an apart from the planning committee. I’ll find it.

00:49:00,230	That’s great. I’ll find it. Do you know. Do you know? And you. Know. I don’t, but I was I mean, I met her when she was here. Yeah. And Kathy Simmons here. So they’re very involved in that.

00:49:20,930	So, um, so anyhow, um, in the, in the, um, master plan, there was an action item to amend or consolidate the open space and farmland preservation development bylaw in the estate overlay district, because those two bylaws had never been used. So, um. Amy and I have been working on, um, this particular issue, and we have made some substantial progress.

00:49:52,070	There’s there are some outstanding questions, uh, that remain kind of unresolved. So before we present, um, the, uh, the revised bylaw, because both of the existing bylaws would be eliminated and replaced with, uh, essentially a conservation subdivision.

00:50:22,830	Um, we want it to be in a form that we can discuss it intelligibly without having a lot of, uh, really, um, mistakes in it, or, like, just unproductive provisions that that don’t really lend itself. So it’s not a wholesale rejection of 8.1. Uh, and it’s not a wholesale rejection of the estate overlay district, but it’s an effort to combine the two.

00:50:49,100	And, uh, simplify the procedures that were set forth in both of those bylaws, which were really cumbersome. So, for example, in the open space and farmland Preservation Development Bylaw, a developer would come in, request a special permit, have essentially a a schematic plan of some sort, a yield analysis, and then they would get a special permit and then they would fall another application for a special permit with the

00:51:15,870	final presumably engineered design. So we wanted to streamline that process. So you would come in for one special permit, but there would be really strong emphasis on, um, what we studied extensively with respect to. 133 E6 and that was those were the provisions set forth in 8.1.12. But we have, of course, rewritten that 8.1.

00:51:49,300	1 to eliminate the ambiguity and to make clear about what was really intended by that, identifying the different conservation areas, etc.. So it’s it’s really coming closer to fruition.

00:52:20,830	And I’ll tell you, if you fracture your foot in the middle of the summer, it gives you an opportunity to work on it harder than you would otherwise be inclined to do. So, um, to, to members agree that that is a worthwhile endeavor. It’s certainly set forth in the master plan, and hopefully it will it will provide, um, a much better alternative than a conventional subdivision, because it does have the same provision or similar provision to the old open space bylaw, which requires setting aside 50% open

00:52:56,000	space on any parcel. So are you asking us to rank things, or are you asking us to say yes? It’s worth working on. I’m just saying asking if you think it’s keep going. Definitely, definitely keep going. We’re not asking you for a vote.

00:53:15,530	Yeah, I mean, we’ve we’ve discussed over the years how we have. this this several bylaws that. Right. Essentially do the same thing. They give density bonuses in exchange for, you know, senior housing, preserving old houses, doing this and doing that. And maybe we should have just one bylaw which says, you know, uh, density bonus bylaw, whatever.

00:53:37,370	And, you know, if you meet any of these objectives and you go through this process, then you can, um, get a certain density bonus, right? And that’s kind of the thrust of it. But we want to make sure that it’s crystal clear and pretty simple to understand. And believe me, that’s harder than you think.

00:53:58,470	Well, a lot of decision, the choices to be made. And what we want to do is get something in place that you could review, and then we could kick around some of the options to X, Y, and Z.

00:54:13,470	Uh, and are there at least a half dozen that really warrant some discussion and would come out of the board? But what we’re trying to do is put a complete package on the table to then use to modify as necessary, right. When Jonathan and I first joined the, uh, was it about 15 years ago when.

00:54:34,470	But Bill was on the committee and the the planning board at that time was was using a considering a flexible, flexible development. Like flexible zoning bylaw. That’s right. For the purpose of replacing the open space bylaw because it was never used.

00:54:52,400	And we did some research on this and found we got some very good information on why it was never used, because it’s not attractive to a developer for a number of reasons. So taking into account many things, but that flexibility being one of them, uh, and uh, being really specific about what our goals are on this, we put together.

00:55:13,800	Um, maybe what we should do is we should survey the existing legislation that we have in any form of variety that grants a density bonus. And say, you know, here you get it for this, here you get it for that, here you get it for that. And then you can think about how do we how do we merge that into one document.

00:55:27,600	Yeah. The bonuses is is going to be a big issue. Yeah that’s a big issue. And then the other thing um, uh, we have we looked at other communities that have these conservation subdivisions. So we have the benefit of their bylaws and some, some communities have density bonuses, others don’t. Um, it’s interesting.

00:55:50,070	I mean, we’ve we’ve also looked at the number of parcels that are available in Hamilton and particularly parcels with great estates, but I think, um, practically speaking, I don’t see many of those quote unquote great estate property properties ever, ever being the subject of a conservation sub subdivision,

00:56:15,200	maybe 1 or 2. We don’t want to exclude that. But I think some of the bigger properties, most of the land is probably in a conservation restriction anyway.

00:56:37,870	And and some of the properties are off private ways with other houses like there, they’re two two estate houses in Woodland Meade, but they’re subject to the covenants in Woodland Meade, which prohibits more than well only permits one dwelling unit on any particular lot, regardless of size.

00:57:02,930	So they’re impediments to the use of A conservation subdivision in situations like that, there are state houses off of Gail Avenue, and I would suspect that they might also be problematic if someone wanted to do a development. And there. So you have to kind of look at what we have here, look at the available and kind of tailor it to what’s feasible in town, what’s likely to appeal to the residents.

00:57:26,730	I think that they have to, you know, understand that the benefit of conserving the open space, um, as opposed to, uh, well, for example, the, the conventional subdivision that we saw prepared by Toll Brothers at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, it would just have resulted in the elimination of all the trees and just kind of a, you know, would.

00:57:54,500	I mean, we want to be as flexible as possible and allowing it’s usually surviving heirs to get some money, while at the same time meeting a wide range of conservation goals. Right. And my own view is we should probably be is absolutely flexible as possible, whether it’s density, bonus or use of old buildings. And you know, there’s just there’s a wide range of things.

00:58:19,570	Right. And actually in the draft that’s on. There, but it has to meet certain objectives. Yeah. The draft that’s on the table gives a density bonus for the reuse of an estate house. And another density bonus if it’s restored historically.

00:58:42,030	You know, if it’s actually, you know, not just turned into condos but actually restored so and so you’ll see. And there, there we we don’t have all the answers, but we don’t want to throw it out and have it. So, uh, unclear that that it just goes awry.

00:59:07,670	So we’re looking at these other communities that have similar bylaws and learning from them, and also the literature that’s available, which is fairly extensive. So, so that’s one thing. The GP rod, we talked about amending the jeopardy and that that’s kind of not going anywhere. Mark, I don’t know if you would have the ability to contact someone at the DEP. And we already made one change to the body, right. Yeah.

00:59:34,000	We made we made that change. Okay. But we were trying to address just the whole new innovative waste water systems that could be used to obviate the need for, um, um, 80ft for a dwelling unit in the G pod. If if there’s a utilization of an advanced wastewater system. And so it’s.

01:00:03,630	I mean, part of the problem is too, there are large parts of town with, I think, quarter acre zoning and maybe that is good for one septic system. But if we at some point they’re all going to fail and need to be replaced. Yeah. And that’s not clear. There’s the space to replace them. Right.

01:00:28,730	And then you’re going to get into sewage right. So title five I guess is uh, it’s the Board of Health that deals with title five. And I think they might be the final determinant in terms of what is that density as measured in dwelling units. Right.

01:00:48,630	Uh, that’s that’s another thing we’re trying to kick around. Is density really a function? Should it be a function of bedrooms? We want multifamily housing or, you know, as opposed to doing more single family on single lots, um, which is sort of more of a conventional and just shrinking the lot size down to maybe half

01:01:08,430	of what it is. So if it’s an R-1, a, it would be a, a. Half of 10,000. Yeah, maybe 10,000ft. Thank you. 10,000ft and r1 BB 20,000. That that seems to be that would give you that sort of render up to about a 50% open space part in the. I mean, that’s kind of a tight.

01:01:31,170	Ultimately, the town is going to have to move to having more cluster development with whatever land there is. Yeah. Uh, how hosting, uh, some kind of treatment facility. Yeah. They’re going to have to. And they. Even.

01:01:53,770	It wasn’t long ago where many communities if if it’s in an Seward area, which is of course, Hamilton completely uh, they wouldn’t allow cluster housing in it. And that’s the reason why it was never done in a lot of communities because of that.

01:02:11,400	And that restriction is, well, how do you manage combining clusters of buildings where, you know, it’s much more dense in a in a local area, I think accommodate the wastewater treatment. And um, but again, it’s a matter of the technology kind of really changing the landscape a little bit. And a lot of these, it would not be uncomfortably sort of what they were proposing.

01:02:33,130	On the 133 Essex to have a common wastewater treatment facility, septic system for those 50 units in one part of the. And you can actually do that obviously on the on the open space, if it’s done carefully and.

01:02:52,870	Has anybody done any analysis to look at like a comparison of use of space or square footage with a package system and cluster development versus smaller lots with individual sceptics, I would think that a package system is more efficient if it’s designed correctly. In other words, a group system. Yeah, I’m just curious if there’s been any sort of statistical analysis.

01:03:14,570	Yeah, we certainly need, I think, some technical help on in the on the pod because that that was a good start in sort of putting a cap on what you can do somewhere in terms of how many dwelling units. Yeah. But it’s a it’s the metric we have right now is a crude metric. Yeah. I don’t know the answer to your question on that, whether it’s demonstrated or what the. Yeah, I don’t know.

01:03:35,570	Yeah. You know, I think that this if we do want to amend the pod, we really do need. We need some expertise. We can’t really do it ourselves. No. I think the language can be you don’t want to.

01:03:55,330	You don’t want to craft language that specifies a type of technology that could change. And a couple of years, because then you’d have to amend the bylaw again. So but you still have to understand what that technology is. So you can formulate the more generalized language that would permit these high tech. Uh.

01:04:20,670	The problem also is that there’s there’s sort of conventional septic design engineers out there, and then there’s more experimental septic design engineers. C kind of needs somebody who’s a little more forward thinking, um, to help us. Yeah. So in other words, not not Western Samson or somebody like that. Yeah, I know, maybe Mark, are you. Communicating like that. With other communities as a first sort of.

01:04:44,970	First resources? Yep. Writes the title Fire Regulations. So they might have some suggestions on criteria or sort of how to. So I like that suggestion actually. Yeah. Because I mean I remember looking at the title five regulations and went no can do. I mean, not only are they dense there long.

01:05:07,630	And, you know, for a layperson who’s not an engineer to try and dive into those regulations and come up with something, it not it was impossible. And it also was completely to my perspective, uninteresting, because, I mean, it just it had no you really need to know what you’re doing to to to understand all those

01:05:29,870	regulations and what they’re what the specific regulation is designed to do. So it really does require a lot of expertise. And it’s way past, uh, well, it’s not part of my education to.. So the next item is, to my mind, the thing that’s most immediately broken definitions.

01:05:53,300	Right. And and did you have a chance to look at this? I. I received an email from Mark today, and I talked to him about it, uh, after I arrived here. So I just need some, uh, guidance of what you’re looking for to do. I can do it. Yeah.

01:06:06,770	So I think, uh, Mark suggested I start with, uh, was that one section the, um. It’s tough because I started looking at it. And so if you look at accessory dwelling unit. Yeah. Okay. So, so that’s mentioned in the table of use regulations. And then in section 3.6.

01:06:33,500	So rather than have it the what I thought because you mentioned the other um, some of the regulations that had special definitions is to have the general definitions. But then any definitions that just were confined to one section, like adult entertainment, is confined to one section of the bylaw.

01:07:03,370	So have those, you know, grouped at the end as opposed to mixed in with the general definitions. So have it clear, um, say adult entertainment uses. See if you go to up a little bit. So that appeared in the table of use regulations once. And then there were all these definitions. So they really should be out of the general group of definitions. And just sandwiched in its own particular place.

01:07:27,830	Process may have to be iterative. It’s so complex, um, that it might be that you start with low hanging fruit, like you take the adult entertainment stuff, put it in by its own category, then you take the stuff that’s obviously duplicate and combine it. Yeah. And then the next thing I came to was building.

01:07:47,200	And so, you know, I was thinking building it has a definition. Okay. And and then I did a search in the bylaw about how often building shows up. Okay. So it’s everywhere. So um, yeah. So the other thing is that, um, right now, like there’s some, some real sore points are things to do with.

01:08:08,870	Let’s see, I have a written down here. Where like bored or just as an example, there’s that’s a. Open space and lot coverage are two things that are real sore points, open space and lot coverage are two real sore points in the definition section. And, you know, for example, open space in the board body.

01:08:34,700	Rather, it’s a whole section is defines open space. But then elsewhere it it’s kind of hit or miss. Um and lot coverage is completely missing. It’s not defined anywhere in the bylaws. And that’s really critical because it’s mentioned it’s mentioned as a metric, but it’s not defined anywhere. And there’s lots of ways to define it. Um, so another.

01:09:01,830	Coverage is in the town center code. Right. But it’s. Not defined. We we never got a definition right. It’s not defined. But for them it does include impervious surfaces. Right. So and there’s another one there. It’s sort of this this this spiral to define impervious. Impervious is is a tricky subject.

01:09:26,400	Towns treated differently um like the DEP talks about matching pre-development soil absorption rates. Well, that’s really through the stormwater lens. Um, but then open space considerations looks at as usable space rather than parking space. So you got to get you got to dig into that.

01:09:42,930	So it’s really hard to just dive into it and do it wholesale correctly all at once. I think you have to kind of dig in and start just clearing the dreck. Exactly. And see how it see how it looks, and then you try again and then again and then again and it’ll start to organize itself.

01:09:58,800	But I think it is good to make a list of things that are literally just missing or so key and so vague, like open space and lot coverage, um, and build. Another good one is building footprint. Um, I just ran up against that elsewhere where like, for example, in surveyors convention conventions, some surveyors survey to the foundation, other surveyors, uh, survey to the, to the building projections.

01:10:25,630	And those are two very different numbers. And. A lot of towns skipped that process. Some some are pretty rigorous about it, but we don’t really talk about it at all. And those all tied back into open space and lot coverage.

01:10:45,870	So I think it’s just a matter of digging in and and instead of saying, here’s here are the steps and that’ll finish it, I think it might be take a stab at it and then we talk about it together. Look at it. It’s much harder than I thought. Yeah, it’s very difficult. It’s very tricky. A very. Tricky. Exercise.

01:11:01,900	But sounds like we want we it sounds like you’re saying keep some inconsistencies in the manner that some definitions will stay in sections. And some of the definitions will go on definitions category. I think that’s the exception there. I think the you hit the the anomaly, which is the adult entertainment.

01:11:17,030	I think a lot of things need to be more universal. Yeah. But at. Least that is definitions. At least categorize them within that definition section. If you wanted to. I think they should be alphabetical. Okay. But but that’s that’s a discussion. That’s a discussion. That’s my opinion. My thinking is like the adult entertainment that should just be its own version.

01:11:35,500	Yeah. But that’s an anomaly. You know, that’s an anomaly. All those things. Yes I agree with that. Get them out of the definitional section. And you could you could have like for example, with open space, you could have a general definition for it that’s consistent through the bylaw.

01:11:49,400	But then there’s one bylaw, the the Browns Hill um, section that digs into more detail and that can show up, you know, in that section. So it might be that there’s a general definition that’s alphabetical under definitions. And then you hit a bylaw. Um, this is another anomaly.

01:12:08,670	Uh, another you hit a bylaw that, that wants more control over that and more and more specificity. And that’s an example of that is Browns Hill. So you just got to we got to dig in and and wrestle with it. It’s not going to be clean and neat..

01:12:24,230	And within the definition section would you have a referral to where it was mentioned in the document? Uh, I don’t think I think that’d be really that’d be really cumbersome. I think it’s just definitions, alphabetical. And actually it’s easy to find where it’s mentioned in the Bible. Yeah, but it would get very long if you referenced everything you was asking.

01:12:44,400	Should you have under each definitions? Should you should you reference every page. Yeah. That’d be too too long. Too long. Vice versa. You’re in the document itself. You reference the definitions section. Further information whether that means. It might be that you do it one step at a time. You like just just organize everything.

01:13:01,000	Basically number one. Then you can start to see what the complexity is. And then because you might have many words that mean the same thing or they mean different things, but they’re the same word, you know, it’s a. It’s going to reveal a pattern. Yes, when you dig into it.

01:13:17,170	But, but to to dictate what the pattern is now I think is right to to challenging. Yeah. Okay. But it’s it’s complicated. I’ll just take a, my own copy, make a draft of it and just start digging into it. Yeah. We could all take a look at it and make our comments.

01:13:34,600	And then I think that the board needs to discuss things like how we’re going to define open space, how are we going to define lot coverage. You know, if we’re going to have the word impervious in there, do you define that? You know, those are things that the board is going to have to decide. Um, those are sort of beyond organization. Those are policy.

01:13:50,570	Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, this it’s really a mess. Here’s a definition of finding that is really a bad definition for the purposes of section five of finding shall mean the affirmative vote of three members of the EPA. But nope. Finding is a vote. I, so.

01:14:14,630	That’s what what I started here is this is the of all our priorities here. This is this one’s the most broken. So it’s broken. So to me, longest. Time. To me to me. If you were going to rank these things, this one’s up there. Yeah.

01:14:31,700	Well you know and some of the things though, like if we eliminate the open space bylaw, then all that goes away, right? There you go. Select all delete. Here’s like the floodplain overlay district. That has to be its own little world. Just like the adult entertainment, because it has its own specific definitions.

01:14:54,130	And Mark said these are definitions that are mandated by, you know, the federal government. So that goes, you know. Don’t touch. Those with the. That’s easy. You should not touch those definitions because. Don’t even don’t even move them. No, you can move them, but just don’t change. the wording. Oh my intent is not to change any wording. I’m just to rearrange. Right. And then we can discuss that.

01:15:14,030	Yeah. So your first step is sorting. Yeah. Which is the these things. It’s not like the other basic Sesame Street stuff. . I’m not making silly. Yeah I mean the thing that the, the definitions, it’s so that there’s one that’s for the floodplain overlay district and has a bunch of definitions that pertain to that bylaw, but you

01:15:37,000	don’t know where it stops, because then there’s all this other stuff. I’m telling Jeff like it just better formatting, like, because if you’re reading this section, it’s not clear that these are just floodplain definitions. There’s like five pages of floodplain definitions.

01:16:00,530	So the floodplain definition of structure is different than the town’s definition of structure. And they also have two different definitions of structure under the floodplain. So uh, just formatting I think would help sort of differentiate these subsection definitions from our other definitions. Yeah. Let’s not go so wholly.

01:16:19,770	I got different directions and my formatting or my removing the definitions out into its own section. Well, the approach we’re doing. So you’re removing definitions that are just really pertinent to say, the floodplain overlay district. So how does he know which ones those are. Well. I could figure out which ones were pertinent to the adult entertainment use. That’s an easy one. That was an. Easy one. Aren’t as easy.

01:16:43,700	The floodplain overlay district I think is really long. Yeah. And it goes from page 185 to 189, where you start with floor area ratio. So I think all of those definitions, you know, that whole section just comes out of the definitions because it’s not pertinent to any other bylaw. Anyhow.

01:17:16,530	That’s a work in progress. So uh, we talked about the, um. I’m going to come back to section five, but we talked about the dark sky bylaw. So that’s done. Uh, section five Mark. That’s the those new, uh, the changes to 40 a that the legislature just made.

01:17:44,600	So, so obviously section five has to be amended because of the whole issue with the variances and all that kind of stuff. So the question I have is who is going to be responsible for drafting those bylaw amendments, which are all because the law is in effect, our our bylaws now, not consistent with the state law.

01:18:12,930	So, uh, is the Commonwealth going to issue guidance on this? Should we wait on them to tell us how to amend the bylaw? Because my guess is there are a whole lot of bylaws all over Massachusetts that are not dissimilar to us. Yeah. I wouldn’t necessarily count on the state to do it, but I there’s every town is going to have to do this.

01:18:34,800	So, um, I think it’s sort of a technical exercise. I don’t think you have to spend a ton of time on it, but we will have to amend the zoning to, you know, align with the new state law. So. Right.

01:18:47,070	I think, um, Cape law is going to be in front of the zoning board tomorrow night to discuss the new variance criteria. So I’ll ask them then, you know, if they could just take a first pass at this for us. Um, yeah. I mean, they might be able to, you know, one of their attorneys might be able to just look at section five.

01:19:03,700	Now, fortunately, the town sort of code doesn’t mention variances. We’re lucky. So, uh, but so section five is where variances come in, and I’m not sure there are any other sections that talk about variances. Correct me if I’m wrong. Ten section ten talks about them. So oh. Ten point. Well that would be the. The CBA section.

01:19:29,770	Yeah. 10.4 or 10 10.6 is site plan review. I think 10.5 is special permits. I think it’s, uh, 10.8 maybe. I mean eight. Yeah. Right. Uh 10.3. So 10.334 talks about the variance criteria. That number four bullet. Yeah. So it’s it actually isn’t a huge task. I don’t think. Yeah. And it’s pretty straightforward.

01:20:21,630	You just have to match the new state language.. Right. Uh and I don’t I, you know, the whole notice business I don’t know about that. I mean now you can provide notice by email. So I talked to the assessor and we don’t currently track email for assessment purposes.

01:20:42,870	So it it’s just an option and we don’t have to do it. So the town’s. Plan is meh okay. But yeah, if you talk to Cape Law because it may be that they’ve been asked to do this for other communities, and it’ll be not that expensive if they’re doing it, you know. Yeah. For a lot of communities. Sure.

01:20:59,900	Okay. So, uh, you know, the I have timetables for amendments. So, you know, the question is whether we shoot for the annual town meeting in April for some of these, um, amendments to the bylaw, or we wait essentially a year. I think that that probably this subdivision, um, conservation subdivision bylaw would be ready to go by April.

01:21:30,870	Do you? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Um, I think we organizing the definitions could be ready to go by April. Does that need a town vote definitions. By me. Definitions needs. Town meeting. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Um, the dark sky bylaw. Uh, I’m not going to opine on that yet.

01:21:51,200	I just don’t know. But I think that, um, definitely the, um, the first, the first bullet point and the definitions would be good for the April town meeting and probably the variance business too.

01:22:17,930	So those would be three things for the annual town meeting with the the, um, uh, the jury out on some of the other things. So we have Adu design guidelines, the town center and public space standards, and we shall know in September where we stand on that. Right? Yes.

01:22:52,570	And, uh, simultaneously, though, you mentioned that we have this other option of, um, uh, this center for Zoning Solutions Awards. So I think if it’s not too much of a stretch, uh, we could hedge our bets and ask and seek a grant from this entity for the same guidelines and standards that were seeking money. This is. Not a grant. It’s just sort of recognition. So it’s an award. It’s. It’s an award.

01:23:17,130	Yes. So you did a good job writing this section. Of the rest. You don’t get any. Money. You don’t. Get any money. But it can be nice. We made a lot of changes to the bylaw and it came and. I. Spent I thought we got. Money. Yeah. Knock yourself. Out. Well.

01:23:35,270	We’re one of the few investors that have form based code, so, um, it might be interesting to sort of get some credit for that. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. All right. Well, let’s hope let’s hope we get some money from the Commonwealth for our, um, guidelines.

01:23:53,600	And then, Mark, you have a checklist. So I don’t know if anybody reviewed Mike’s checklist. It was part of the package. I don’t it’s 830. So I think that probably, uh, at at our next meeting, maybe we want to go through it, evaluate it, and make any changes to it.

01:24:12,330	And if we like it, just go ahead and, um, approve it after we make any recommendations with respect to altering it in any way, I think that’s good to have on board.

01:24:38,870	And also, the other thing with respect to that, um, and where is it? Uh, the flow chart that we had developed, I think that’s also something that, um, is helpful to also consider at the same time, don’t you think? Yeah. So, so those are the checklist. And this flow chart.

01:25:06,070	Uh, having them as recognized documents, um, would be extremely helpful if, if there is to be any development in the town center and people have something in hand, even if they don’t have town center guidelines and public space standards. Yeah. Okay. So that Mark should go on the agenda at our next meeting or the one after it as soon as it’s feasible. Um. We have a really moved forward on Adu guideline design guidelines, but then I don’t think we have many ADUs.

01:25:36,500	Have we? We’ve had a few, um, and I have actually started on an early draft. So perhaps the next meeting I’ll have something I can actually share with you, but.. Oh, for design guidelines. Yeah. Oh, great. Oh, and we have actual applications for reading. Yes we do. Yeah. Maybe eight at this. point.. Under the new law.

01:25:57,830	So they go to the building inspector. They don’t come to us. Yeah. And then, um. It’d be nice to see what those are like if we get a. Yeah. That’d be interesting. You know. You gotta take pictures because we have. All the. Same thing. Yeah. See what? See what.

01:26:19,400	the town is thinking and see if it’s the same thing that we’re thinking. Yeah, right. Maybe they’re often. Never never, never, never, never land or whatever. Let’s just let’s just see what. See what people are trying to do. Yeah. And then this small clean energy infrastructure facility siting and permitting regulations.

01:26:40,370	I don’t know what the status of that is, and I almost hesitate to. Ask, um. It’s a the they’re in effect, but the state hasn’t provided training yet. They’ve, they’ve actually emailed us today about doing a training on it. So I don’t have much new to report.

01:27:02,070	Um, I think we would probably want to make some minor changes to the zoning to account for it, but I’ve talked to the other planners and like one of them, and they’re not really prioritizing this. So they’re not what I’m sorry. They’re not prioritizing this. They’re not having special town meetings to sort of adopt the new, um, new definitions or anything. So would.

01:27:19,030	You have to have a bylaw for this or what would we have to do, or just to have change the table of use regulations and let these things.? I think some technical changes.

01:27:38,270	I don’t think there’s a lot of things you would have to do because we would just sort of, um, reference the new state regulations. Um. but there’s some odd things in the state regulations like the, the person in charge of it for the town is supposed to be the town manager, but he doesn’t really have anything to do with zoning or planning. So it would be odd to have Joe involved.

01:27:55,330	So we would probably want to change that to make me that person or someone in planning. Right? So, um, to be continued. But I don’t think it’s it’s an emergency at this point. Good. Because it was odd. I mean, they don’t they have to be approved within some relatively short window. One year. One year. Okay.

01:28:30,070	So we really talked about, uh, the recent amendments. So now the North Shore Housing discussion group. So they’re meeting on September 2nd. Is that what is that. That’s not a meeting day for us is it. Do you have your. It’s a Wednesday. No, it’s not. Yeah. So I don’t know much about this.

01:28:58,870	I just sort of received this in my email. The gentleman who’s organizing from Manchester, I believe he’s on the he was on the planning board or zoning board. He’s trying to get the towns together to talk about housing ideas. Um. And he’s planning to hold it in this room. So, um, potentially he might want to send some delegates.

01:29:20,200	It’s it’s sort of interesting to sit down with other planning board members in other towns sometimes, but I’m not sure I’m trying to get more information about it. I talked briefly to the planner and Wenham, and I think they’re planning to send some folks, so if anyone’s interested in sort of attending on the planning boards behalf, uh, it certainly couldn’t.

01:29:38,370	Hurt. Okay. Let’s see, what’s the intent? How was he in general? Uh. so I’ll just read from his. Email among the subject we would like to discuss this time lounge shared housing coordinator for compliance and marketing of affordable housing units.

01:30:00,270	Development of a model code allowing two and three family units in residential neighborhoods, linked in conjunction with explicit design guidelines. Open space and cluster development strategies to provide an alternative to four DB projects. Courting fair marketing plans for affordable housing. Ways of addressing the need for missile missing middle housing options. Promoting regional affordable housing initiatives, and talking points to reframe conversations about housing.

01:30:27,970	It’s all over the place. I was thinking of going to that. Uh. Yeah. There’s a bit all over the place. It is. Wish list. Yeah. So it might be interesting to ask. Some don’t really sound like they would apply to us. So be affordable housing trust. She should be in attendance. For sure.

01:30:51,430	And of course, you know we’re looking at this conservation subdivision. I, I hesitate to use the word cluster housing because I think that many people don’t really understand it or have. A it’s been misused. That’s the problem. It’s been taken.

01:31:15,530	And uh, and defined as something that really is in cluster housing. So that’s, that’s the issue that we were coming across. Right. So we’re touching on some of these things. Yeah. Um, but to the extent it’s oriented toward affordable housing, you know, there’s affordable housing like Harbor, um, Harbor homes, Harbor Light homes, um, that’s affordable housing using federal standards for income.

01:31:43,830	And then there’s affordable housing. Just as a practical matter, because housing is at all time highs. Uh, it seems to me, um, if you look at, um, Zillow and you see houses that are on the market and 15 years ago they were less than they sold for less than half of what they were on the market.

01:32:07,400	Now, Bill, you can speak to this better than me, but, you know, housing is just not that affordable to people with even quite respectable incomes because of, um, inflation in the housing market.

01:32:33,470	Because I because of the lack of housing, although I think Hamilton has you know, we have a we have a pretty healthy, um, uh, real estate market in the under $1 million range. It seems to me, just anecdotally not not scientifically. So. So any any other items on the agenda? I don’t think. So. So Darcy is in fear to do her normal motion. So I think everyone should know where we’re headed here. And a motion to adjourn.

01:33:14,570	Second. Thank you. Second. All in favor. Aye aye.