Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[0:09] Erin Zwerko: This is Erin Zwerko, Director of Planning and Development, and I'm calling the meeting to order. This is the Planning Board meeting of September 23rd, 2026, and I'll call the roll since our chair is online and our vice chair is not here. So, Denise Cameron? Here. Ian Cromartie? Here. Janet Hansen? Here. Jerry King? Here. Great. George Vizcala? Here. Here. Matt Schumacher is absent and Kelly Williams here. And so, we will continue on to the election of a temporary chair for the evening and I will turn it over to the planning board members to make a motion for, a temporary chair. I'd like to make a
[0:56] Denise Cameron: motion, for Denise Cameron to be our temporary chair. I'll second.
[1:03] Erin Zwerko: Oh, I got to do that part too. So I will call the vote. Denise Cameron. Approved. Ian Cromartie. Approved. Janet Hanson. Approved. Jerry King. Approved. George Riscala. Approved. Matt Schumacher is absent and Kelly Williams. Approved. Great. I will turn it back over to the planning board. Great. Thank you all. All right. Next up on our agenda is approval of the September 9th, 2026 meeting minutes. Any comments from the board? Questions? Do we have a motion? All right. Do we have a second? All right. So we'll do the roll call. Denise Cameron, I'll approve. Ian Camardi? Approve. Janet Hansen? Approve. Jerry King? Approve. Let's see. Matt is absent. Kelly and Williams all right thank you all right next up on the agenda would be the planning director report yep thank you the next planning board meeting on October 14th will have two historic reviews on it and also I'm bringing forward the affordable housing development and accessory dwelling unit amendments that the planning board looked at on September 9th to a public hearing on that date so those materials are posted online for folks that want to take a look and then I don't have the agenda for the late October meeting as that deadline has not approached yet but we do have items in the queue that we are expecting so we'll have the second meeting in October. Also, an early reminder that due to the Veterans Day holiday and the Thanksgiving holiday in November, the planning board will meet on November 18th, which is a third Wednesday. So slightly different than what everyone is used to, but accommodating the schedule of the busy schedule of November. But with that, I will turn it back over to the planning board for the business.
[3:25] Denise Cameron: Erin, can I ask, clarifying, is November 18th our only meeting in November?
Unfinished Business
[3:30] Erin Zwerko: Correct. Okay, thank you. And hopefully that is a Wednesday? Yes, it is. Okay, good. Yes, it's the 18th. Okay, thank you. Yes, that would be the only meeting in November. Awesome. All right. So we have no old business today. We have one new business item on our agenda. It is a workshop item, and it's amendments to various sections of Chapter 701 to incorporate the state law mandates for density and dimensional standards for residential zoning districts requested by the Yarmouth Department of Planning and Development. So Erin, I think you have a presentation for us. Yep, I do. So just as by way of introduction, the formal amendments were not submitted for this meeting, but rather this will give the Planning Board a chance to review some of the concepts with the staff that we will formulate into final amendments. And I'm also just going to take a little bit of time with my presentation to provide some background on this topic. This is the more complicated element of LD 1829, 2173. It's not super complicated, but it does mandate certain things that are required of us, but will allow some municipal discretion, which I'll focus on towards the end of the presentation. The, it is important to recognize that this is, this will change the residential density, particularly in our growth area and areas that have public water and public sewer. So future amendments, when we put it all together, could, will have sort of far-reaching effects within our community. So if folks that are watching from home or watching this on replay have questions about what this means, please feel free to contact the Planning Department, and I'd be happy to walk everyone through it. Same goes for the Planning Board members. If you have any questions, please let me know either tonight or separately. So I figured it's important to give some comprehensive plan context. The reason we do comprehensive plans is to set land use policy guidance for the future that, you know, zoning should be relevant to what the comprehensive plan says. So most recently we adopted a comprehensive plan in 2024. The previous one was adopted in 2010. So for several decades, several comprehensive plans, there's been a long-standing goal to reduce the minimum lot size in the growth area and primarily in the medium density residential district. Planning Board members might recall, and community members might recall, that the department commissioned some recommendations for the MDR in 2025. And it's important to note that LD 1829 supersedes those recommendations, although we took some cues from that work that was done by a consultant to inform the work that we're doing now. The other recommendations of that report, particularly where they reviewed the other elements of our land use ordinances, are still relevant, and we still refer to them and might bring more amendments in the future. So elements of 1829-2173 are definitely consistent with the comprehensive plan, primarily the long-stated goal of reducing the minimum lot size in the growth area. So on this slide, you can see the four comprehensive plan goals up in the corner, and the work that 1829 2173 is mandating can help achieve the goals of the comprehensive plan, primarily by maintaining walkable, bikeable, and welcoming neighborhoods, encouraging housing diversity to support aging in place and multi-generational living. The focus, the focusing growth within the village and the surrounding neighborhoods where infrastructure can support the density, is an important tenant of smart growth. And that's something that we see in the laws, and then finally, managing growth consistent with our historic development patterns while acknowledging the importance of natural resources is a, is a stated goal, an important element of the comprehensive plan. And that also provided cues for the development of the concepts that we'll show you tonight. And I think it's also important to just remind folks that there are some elements that are right now that can help moderate the development of this in the future. So immediately, and at least for the next year and a half, there is, or more, there is a building moratorium within the Royal River sewer shed. Happily, that sewer pump station is being reconstructed, and that will be online soon-ish, but that will limit growth in about two-thirds of the community immediately. In the longer term, we know we have many subdivisions that have restrictions on further subdivision and further use. So in the graphic on the slide, it's red light, green light style, so the green shading, the lightest green shading, means the least restrictions, and even in fact no restrictions, all the way to red, which has heavily restricted subdivisions. And so those are going to be private covenants that these laws do not supersede, but so we have to be mindful of those when we're looking at development projects, but in these, this case You can see on the in the graphic that there are some significant subdivisions that were developed in the 80s 90s and you know in more modern times where there are heavy restrictions. And then particularly in the village where we have more historic resources, we also have the historic preservation advisory review and our historic building alterations and demolitions review, which helps put eyes on projects where we might be impacting historic resources, which are also similarly an important character-defining element of Yarmouth. So tonight versus the other night on September 9th, we're going to look at the residential density. So as I've stated, it mandates density and dimensional requirements in growth areas and areas served by public water and public sewer. And part of this is to understand that there are some limits on the permitting process. process. So planning board approval cannot be required for four or fewer dwelling units. This will impact subdivision, but it will also impact site plan. And I can talk about that a little bit more as we get through the presentation. So basically the residential dwelling unit requirements, any residential lot within a community must allow at least three dwelling units and that's going to be inclusive of adus I talked a little bit at the previous meeting of how the differences between adus and principal dwelling units is blurring a bit so residential lots within a growth area must allow at least four dwelling units inclusive of adus our growth area is primarily our village route one main street, and that's where you see most of our public water and sewer infrastructure. A residential lot that's served by both public water and sewer must also allow at least four dwelling units, inclusive of ADUs. Now this is where it expands outside the growth area, where there is still that public infrastructure, and I have a graphic that shows some of the infrastructure on an upcoming slide right here so the beige area or the golden overlay area in the middle is our growth area so you can see that's a significant portion of our village area and route one and main street now on this slide the dark black lines illustrate where there is sewer mains and then the purple ish polygons illustrates where there's public water. Of course, the Yarmouth Water District is a separate agency from the town, but this is generally their territory. So you can see outside the growth area where there is public water and public sewer, we're looking mainly at Sligo Road, North Road, a little bit out East Main Street, down Bayview and some of the intersecting roads there, and down the Prince's Point Peninsula. Now, that sewer area on Cousins Island is a little bit of a red flag. It is basically like a giant septic system that serves that neighborhood. It would not be able to support additional connections to it. So that area would not necessarily be considered served by public sewer. Sewer. So I know the planning board has seen this chart probably quite a bit from me, but I think the key piece is to notice that within the growth area and if you're served by public water and public sewer, the state law requires that four dwelling units be allowed on 5,000 square feet. That's going to affect our MDR and Village 2 and Village 3 districts. I will note in the character based development code obviously that is, you know, that covers Main Street and Route One, significant areas of our growth area, but because there is no density control, this law does not apply in those areas. The way that law or that ordinance works allows the form and function of the building to be controlled by other elements on the site. And I'll also note that if we're within the growth area but not served by public water, public sewer, we do still have to allow up to four units, but the development needs to be compliant with the main subsurface wastewater disposal rules. That's what governs septic systems and their layout and location. So turning to... Eric, do you want to? Yep, go ahead, Janet.
[15:10] Speaker C (unidentified): It just curious, do we have any areas within the growth area that aren't served by public
[15:20] Erin Zwerko: water and sewer in Yarmouth? There are probably very few areas, but this is probably one location, if you can see my cursor, out Hillside is one location and out West Main. But I think if you do find a location without public sewer, it's going to be pretty few and far between. I thought so. Thank you. No problem. So turning to outside the growth area, which is really going to be our low density residential and our rural residential areas outside the growth area. But if you're served by public water and public sewer, we need to allow four dwelling units on 40,000 square feet. So that's one dwelling unit per 10. If we're outside the growth area and there is no public water, no public sewer, where our existing zoning conditions can regulate, but we do need to allow up to three units per lot if it meets the density requirements of our existing zoning conditions. So for example, in the LDR, one unit requires two acres, two units requires four acres. So if someone has a six acre lot, they should be able to do three units on that lot. Now, just presented a little bit more graphically, but still the same information. You'll see that 20,000 square feet is referenced here for areas within the growth area, but without public sewer. 20,000 square feet is generally referenced as the minimum lot size for a single dwelling unit when you're on septic. But that's to be determined by a licensed site evaluator and there are there are some exceptions for smaller lots but 20,000 square feet is generally the baseline so now moving over to some of the engagement that the town and the comprehensive plan committee did this fall we had three workshops, one in March, one in April, and one in May. The April workshop was really focused on getting folks to think about how to design lots, considering the mandates of this law. So participants at that workshop worked through a series of scenarios, and our goal was to obtain information, input on a limited set of standards where municipal discretion is available. And that's really where the planning board will focus on later on in the meeting. So we gave participants different scaled lots, you know, on large pieces of paper. We had a 5,000 square foot lot, a 10, a 20, and a one acre size lot. And then to scale various site features to design the lots. So, you know, cutouts of house footprints,, garage footprints, driveways, trees, things like that. And there were three scenarios. And I'll go through sort of the feedback that we received during that workshop, which was helpful as we formulated the concepts that are in front of you. So we wanted folks to add up to four units on 5,000 square feet, account for other site features. Then we asked folks to add at least two new houses on already developed lots of different sizes and then basically starting from scratch creating a well-designed site with at least two homes but up to four homes while accounting for site features so
[19:23] Denise Cameron: good question yeah can you go back a slide yeah in the first bullet where it says to obtain input on a limited set of standards where municipal discretion is
[19:32] Erin Zwerko: available. Can you give an example of that? Yep. So the law only specifies lot size and density or minimum lot size and density. So other dimensional standards that we typically see are frontage or lot width, setbacks, impervious coverage, which is not necessarily used to a large extent in our residential districts now but is used in certain areas in Yarmouth, and then the other element is totally blanking on it. Setbacks, right, yes, setbacks, a lot with frontage. It's at the end of the presentation, we will get there. Good examples. So this is the first exercise, again, four units on 5,000 square feet. You can see, based on the participants' layouts, you get a very linear structure. That is a 50-foot by 100-foot lot. Lot. The idea of using a cumulative side setback could help crowding, but it also allows a driveway to be located on one side of the property because the structure can be scooched a little bit further over. While a driveway does not have a setback in Yarmouth, we have limits on off-street parking particularly during the winter, so we do need off street parking availability, and then this exercise suggested that an impervious coverage of not more than 40 may be appropriate. Now keep that in mind because the planning staff have a slightly different recommendation on this, on this element. So one of our wonderful committee members basically showed the layouts in a 3D model so folks can take a look. So if starting on the rear, that's going to be the 5,000 square foot. The one in the foreground is probably an acre. In this, in this instance we have the 5,000 square foot, put 10,000 square foot back to front, then we have the 20 and the acre. Here's another sort of 3D model of what that might look like. Of course, these are boxes and no one generally lives in a square box. There are often architectural features and roof lines and windows and things like that to add interest to the structures, but it can help to see these buildings sort of pop up from the ground. So exercise two was to infill two units on 20,000 square feet. You can see in the examples there's, there was many configurations that folks came up with, including units above garages. This suggested that our existing setbacks, particularly as it relates to the MDR, are definitely suitable. In this case, there's less concern about impervious services, but it might still be valuable to include a standard. Again, you can see the structure sort of pop up from the ground. The I think the you can see the numbers above the units, so like this is a you know a fourplex, but that portion has two units and that portion has two units. In this case with the purple, that was above garages, and here's another example. So exercise three was essentially your choice. It added a little bit fun to the evening and allowed people to really use their imagination. We didn't get to it because not everyone was able to get to this to this exercise, but we but what we started to see were townhouses with garage access and cottage courts. There was discussion about the use of an alley to provide access in the rear, like in the example, the fuzzy the example on the screen, and that's sort of what it looks like popped up and from the rear. So Kelly, you asked about discretionary elements, so this is what my memo really focused on, and that fourth category was definitions, which is not a dimensional standard, but we do need it. We do need to adopt many new definitions, and you can see that in the concept. So, most of them are duplicated from state law and existing ordinances. In particular, I borrowed the impervious coverage definition from the CBDC because it's important to be consistent. So, if I already had a definition, I might as well pull it forward. We looked at frontage and lot width. So, the recommendations, or at least the concepts, are based in best practice and based on development patterns. In the instance of the MDR, it's a smaller frontage of about 50 feet. When we're outside the growth area, the staff decided to have a frontage requirement of, let me just make sure I'm quoting it correctly, of 100 feet, just to give some distance between driveways, but also to recognize that when we're outside the growth area the street scape becomes a little bit more rural, and having a little bit more generous space between the lots would be important. And our goal is to create generally regularly shaped lots, so easy division with lot sizes is and that is the Recommendation so moving into setbacks like I had mentioned at the top of the presentation, we referred to that North Star planning report that had recommendations for the MDR and also comments received from other committees on that report that the Planning Board had a chance to look at back in the spring of last year, also the engagement, so those graphics that I showed earlier in the presentation and best practice provided recommendations. We are the planning staff are recommending or proposing to use a cumulative setback in the growth area with public water and public sewer, so as a way to help have some flexibility in the layout of a site because while not everyone has to develop four units on 5,000 square feet, that is what you can do. And we want to make sure that there is flexibility and actually the ability to do it. Then moving on to impervious coverage. So this could be optional. The Planning Board could say,, I don't necessarily think we should go down this path, but the planning staff and others believe that it could potentially help balance development with open space on these small lots. The engagement recommended a lower percentage, which I called out for folks, but ultimately, as I've sat with it for a little bit, I do think that a higher percentage is going to be beneficial and I make this note because I am concerned that if the impervious coverage is too low then it will drive the general development to be just simply larger single family homes on small lots. I think if we set the impervious coverage a little bit higher, the recommendation is 60% in the growth area. There is the opportunity and the ability to be able to get potentially four units, not saying it's not going to be crowded, but you can get the four units with the parking and the driveway on that 5,000 square feet. I'll also note that there particularly in our historic village the general sort of development of properties is that the garage is located in the back so you often need a longer driveway to get to the driveway in the back, so that is another reason why we're recommending a higher Percentage, but I think that's something that we're distinctly looking for planning board feedback on. So our next steps is that staff will prepare formal amendments for submittal to the planning board, and from here I'm happy to answer questions from the planning board, and if there's any public comment. I also noted that in my preparation of this presentation, I did not necessarily call out that there is an element of the concepts that goes beyond what LD 2173 1829 allows, and that's really focused on multifamily housing of five units or more. We've included a potential density standard for that as well. It, again, is not part of the mandate, but potentially worthy of including following deliberation. So, with that, I will exit my presentation and be happy to answer any questions. And it looks like Jan's got her hand raised already. All right, excellent.
[30:25] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, I did. I'm just curious, you mentioned something, cumulative setbacks. Could you
[30:31] Erin Zwerko: you describe how that works? Right, so in a cumulative setback there is a total, so it's typically used for sides, although it can be used for front and back. In the sides, in what the proposal is to do, a cumulative side setback of 15 feet, so 15 feet needs to be shared on the two sides. And in that case, one side cannot be less than seven feet. So it allows the one side to be seven. The other side would have to be, it's not much more, it would be eight feet on the other side. We do have some older subdivisions in town that have used cumulative setbacks. It was something that was in the ordinance decades ago, and I think in my review of other communities that have started to work on 1829 2173, or just simply have smaller lot sizes, it is something that is used in the region. So making the suggestion here to help facilitate some layout. Thank you, Janet. Any other questions or comments from the board?
[31:55] Denise Cameron: I have a question. I do too. Oh, Ian, go ahead.
[31:58] Speaker D (unidentified): So, these formal amendments that you're talking about that you'll bring to the planning board, you guys have a timeline? When do you think that'll happen?
[32:07] Erin Zwerko: I am working on them right now. It could potentially be the late October meeting or the November meeting, but my goal is to at least have a workshop with the planning, at least one workshop on this element with the planning board before the end of the year. The requirement from the law is to have the amendments in place by July 1, 2027. I don't intend to wait that long. I want to move this along and get it off everyone's plate. So, it has taken, me a little bit longer than I had hoped, a lot of stuff happening in town. So, we'll be focusing on this in the next several weeks.
[32:52] Denise Cameron: Kelly? Yes. My question was around setbacks. And as I think, you know, as we walk around the village and like Hillside and, Bates Street and properties that might be able to build based on, based on this, a lot of homes are so close to the street right like very close to the street if they have the ability to add one or two homes is the setback to help us understand what that setback would look like compared to like the existing home that you know you walk out the front door and you're basically right on the street yep so there's there's a couple of
[33:36] Erin Zwerko: of elements that play with that so currently in the mdr the front yard setback is 15 feet that is what we're recommending for the growth area in this case but that's for you know construction that has happened within the last several decades so there's a lot of old houses that are maybe within five feet of their front property line so those would be considered pre-existing non-conforming and if there are allowances within the zoning ordinance that exist today that allow that non-conforming setback to be to remain if that if that building will allow that building to be expanded along that existing setback line but cannot encroach any further so if we're thinking of a home that has a five front five foot front yard setback a little bit of a tongue twister there it could expand along that five foot front yard setback but cannot go to four feet so that's so in the case here where the four units are allowed on five thousand square feet but can be in a variety of conditions it could if the existing structure is renovated in some fashion to add some of those units to that existing structure, it can, that five-foot setback can continue to exist, or whatever the setbacks are on the side or the rear, if they're also non-conforming. However, if it's new construction, so a detached dwelling unit, it then needs to meet the setbacks. So in the case of, you know, again that pre-existing non-conforming front yard setback but we're going to build a separate dwelling unit maybe off to the side or in the backyard it would have to meet the setbacks
[35:34] Speaker D (unidentified): Of the area, yeah, okay, thank you for that. Yep, I have a question. Yeah, sorry, I have a question with regard to the, if I understood correctly, the improvise and impervious and previous, sorry. It used to be 40%, and now it's going to be around 60%. And I saw also in the document that there was also another 50%. So help me understand what are those and what were the criteria to come up to 60%?
[36:13] Erin Zwerko: Yep. So for clarity, there is no existing impervious coverage standards in our MDR, LDR, are today. So the proposal would be to include a new impervious surface standard. And impervious surfaces is going to refer to the percentage of the lot area covered by structures, buildings, driveways, parking lots, and other non-vegetated surfaces. So like a patio could be considered that. That definition was reviewed with the town engineer prior to me submitting these concepts to you. And he would like to keep all of those elements within the definition of impervious surface. In some communities, there might be more leeway about what is counted there. So that's that's sort of the baseline of what impervious coverage is, so in the concepts that are presented it varies, but to your specific question about the 40 to 60 percent, through the engagement this spring and through some review at the con with members of the comprehensive planning committee that provided input into the early development of this, the recommendation was to be low at about 40 percent or even 35 percent, and as i was working through thoughts and you know chatting with other folks, you know, about this and recognizing that, you know, the goal of the law is to create housing diversity and to create great opportunities for multi-unit structures on lots. And as I sat with it, I got more concerned that having a low impervious surface or impervious coverage percentage will simply just drive people, potentially investors, to just simply build a large single-family home on a small lot. And the conditions through zoning that could allow, you know, a greater number of units plus all the things like driveways, parking spaces, etc., wanted to increase that a bit to create that opportunity. If it is adopted at that higher percentage through this process and through the town council process and it doesn't seem to be working, we can always come back and amend it, but i think i think we need to give it a shot and see how it goes and, you know, get like i said just see how things Precipitate after and evaluate it so you know I'm not, I'm not opposed to saying after, you know, coming back to the planning board and saying like, this is what has come of this law. And these are some of the things that have been great. And these are some of the things that maybe we need to think about improvements on. So, but I do feel strongly that we, if we set it too low, we might- Limit us. We might limit the community.
[39:45] Denise Cameron: Especially when we think about things like patios and like common areas for multi-generational families. And, you know, I think that makes a lot of sense.
[39:58] Erin Zwerko: So that being said, that's for the very small lot that's required. In the areas outside the growth area that are on public services, that has a lower percentage because there's more space to work with. And in the case where we're outside the growth area and existing conditions or existing zoning conditions apply, I'm not proposing to add an impervious surface in that case because at that point we're talking about acres, like multiple acres, and I just don't, it's probably just not useful in that context. You. Since we brought up the impervious surface coverage question there's just a couple things I noticed in the definitions we have definition of lot coverage and I think that's the, is that the intended definition of what we're calling impervious coverage? I just want to make sure I have that understanding right. Okay, I should probably update that to be impervious coverage. That's fine, I just want to make sure I was reading it as intended and I noticed on that definition that there's a proposed credit if the development includes porous or permeable pavers to a 50% kind of credit add-on. Understanding the cost of that premium to have those type of permeable or porous services, I just want to comment that I like that addition. It creates a little bit of the flexibility, Aaron, that you're talking about that is going to allow the intended outcome of the housing density that is the goal of this law, while also allowing a little bit of the designers to have a little bit of creativity by using technology, but not giving them the full credit because it's not exactly the same as nature. So I thought that was a nice pragmatic approach, and so I'd be fully supportive of that definition. The lot coverage 40-60, I think, A, I appreciate all the effort it took to do the outreach and to do the scenarios, and then also, at the same time, true testing it against the outcomes that those could generate and require. I will provide the feedback that I'm a fan of impervious coverage standards in general for situations like this, because it can help create a bit of a balance and make sure that we have protection of some open space. And I think it aligns with the comprehensive plan around protecting our natural resources and et cetera, to have places where stormwater can infiltrate. I think that's very important. So I'm supportive of that as a whole. I am I think I'm fairly supportive of the 60 percent in areas of high where we have the high density targets. I agree, just off the top of my head, it seems very hard to fit that in without and still be able to achieve things like off-street parking, and in those areas I think we really are going to need off-street parking given the snow removal and other challenges that we have. So by way of feedback, I, which I think was a request out of this, that's kind of where my brain is at, so I'll share that with you and with my board members, and I'm curious if anyone else has any feedback specific to lot coverage, which was a request from us, or I'm sorry, in previous coverage. Yeah, I have to, it's consistent too, good. Okay, Aaron, were there other areas of feedback that you would specifically like discuss? Yeah, so I just I briefly mentioned the concept of allowing even greater density in the growth area. This goes beyond the mandates, might not be something that anyone wants to touch at this point, but I think again, like we've for several decades now, we've talked about allowing higher density, changing the minimum lot size, we meaning the town in general, in conversations and written reports and comprehensive plans. So I feel like what we've proposed is reasonable, but I also recognize that is that is that is probably a more significant policy change, and it's unrelated to the mandates, which is what is driving this. I don't think it I can continued on this path and let you all think about it a little bit more and see it sort of in real text. But I think if we have goals today to look at housing diversity, to create opportunities for affordable housing, to be respectful of our climate action goals and concentrate density where there is infrastructure, excuse me, it warrants a look, right? It is a good conversation to have at this board. I recognize there we have one person from the public online. There's no one in the audience. Maybe there's folks watching from home. So, you know, as much as I can daylight this, I think it would help. But I do also recognize that it goes beyond sort of what we are tasked to do with this specific law. So I, you know, if the planning board members have feedback on that element, I'd love to hear it. Or if you're like, Aaron, let's not go there right now. I can back off, but it is potentially something that could be worthy of consideration. All right, any initial feedback on that front of questions? Good for now. I will also say, because we do have members of the public here, and I probably should have led with this, please if you have any comments or would like to share thoughts if you could either come off mute or raise your hand and we'll make sure to include you in the call so looks like Ed would you like to share some thoughts okay Ed if you were speaking the audio did not come through
[47:07] Denise Cameron: Did he have his hand up?
[47:08] Erin Zwerko: Well, he had unmuted his microphone. Do you have your right speaker selected? Or excuse me, your microphone selected? It's tough to know what the problem is when I can't hear you.
[47:29] Denise Cameron: Can we ask him if he wants to raise his hand if he is intending to share something?
[47:34] Erin Zwerko: I think he is. Because I think we might add if you could hear us, I think if there is a way to check your speaker configuration, that's probably a microphone. And if you have brief comments, I open the chat. And if you wanted to type them in the chat, I can read them aloud. I wish it was like my phone. We could see someone. Yes. Tell you what, why don't we give Ed a moment if we can type in the comments. In the chat that would be good and we will read them aloud and if not we definitely encourage you to share those comments directly and we'll come back to you in a little bit to see if maybe some of the tech challenges can be resolved so with that any comments from the board regarding the question about expanding the scope of the work to perhaps consider other housing density goals
[48:51] Denise Cameron: So, Erin, your thought about greater density, are you having sort of a longer view of like what might occur in five years or eight years, as opposed to like, well, let's just make sure that we're adopting the law? Are we being too short sighted by just saying, okay, we're, we're, you know, we're within the law now, all is good. Is that, is that kind of what you're thinking about?
[49:15] Erin Zwerko: Yeah, I think, you know, I think in cases within our growth area, you know, I think there's probably not significant opportunity because if you look at the minimum lot area per unit, once you get above four units, you need 5,000 square feet. So five units would have to be basically on 10,000 square feet. Six units would have to be on 15,000 square feet. So there's not a whole ton of lots. I provided some basic information in the staff report. So you can see, and I know this was a question that came out of the meeting on the 9th. It's really hard to say what the, at least I think it would be hard to say what the ultimate development intensity coming out of LD 1820 and 2173 would be, because every existing parcel has the ability, you know, there's 1,061 lots that have at least 5,000 square feet of developable area, an existing single-family home, no restriction preventing further subdivision, and no restriction limiting use. use. So, all of those lots can potentially, you know, divide off a lot and also add three units to their lots. So, it just compounds in a lot of ways. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think there's a whole heck of a lot of lots within the MDR that would be able to meet this requirement. So, but I do think it's worthy of a discussion to see if it's something that we even wanna broach because it doesn't necessarily, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it, even allowing more than four units in a multifamily building continues to create more housing diversity within the community. It continues to meet some of our climate action goals that are related to smart growth and things like that. So I think if we have the opportunity to talk about it within a public session, we might start talking about it. And if it doesn't rise to the level of feeling comfortable with it at this point, that's fine. We can come back to it. But I think we have the opportunity to be talking about density within our growth area. Let's look at it with a little bit more of a broader view than what simply the law mandates.
[52:23] Speaker D (unidentified): I like it. A quick question with regard to the previous again. It's going to be talking about the garage, the driveway, the setup, setbacks. Is the new law going to be regulating those two? Like talking about specific for 5,000 square foot, how much, let's say 60% will be in previous. previous but out of that for setback how far or I mean I saw that in the document you shared there were like about in some area 15 feet and others were 40 feet yep so yep so the state
[53:15] Erin Zwerko: laws don't set setbacks or frontage requirement or the lot coverage those are elements that a community can use or not use but it's it's pretty common to see at least setbacks and a lot frontage you know just to have not chaos in development so that's that's those are recommendations that the planning staff is making mostly based on again looking at communities that already have small lots to begin with and what are they using for setbacks, what's reasonable. Looking at recommendations from the consultant last year, but as sort of commented on by other boards and committees, the consultant recommended much smaller setbacks in some cases and the feedback received at that time was like, oh, that doesn't necessarily feel very good for this community. So, backing off of that a little bit, similarly with the impervious coverage, sort of based on examples that I can find that are out there, but also, you know, just simply the math and trying to get all that stuff onto a lot. obviously like if it doesn't fit on five thousand square feet and you know someone wants to build four units they can't make it all work you know you need a little bit bigger lot size like it doesn't have to stop at five thousand square feet but that's sort of what we have to plan for thank you yeah it does look like our member of the public rejoined great ed if you can hear us, we'll try again. Just thank you for trying to rejoin. Pause. If you could come off of mute and provide comment. All right. My apologies, Ed. It doesn't seem like the audio is working for us, so we will check back in a bit. In the meanwhile, I can provide, I guess, my thoughts around the question of do we want to, the scope of this. us? Do we want to expand it a little bit to consider? And thank you for asking the question about timing. I think my only concern about it is that we have a very specific mandated timeline that is fairly short ahead of us, although you've done a lot of the good work to get us ready for it. So I like the approach in the Goldilocks way. I like the approach of thinking about it now, thinking about what are the dimension requirements, the dimension definitions that you would want to be able to kind of control a five unit or larger group so that it's kind of has that comprehensive thought. But if there was a way to separate them out from a planning board approval process so that we have one that is on a set timeline and another one that if we need a little more time to nuance it or to work it, that we can just treat it as separate. But Erin, if it helps you to think about them collectively and do this once and do this once where we have the right definitions that would apply not only for what is the mandate, but also maybe what are other things that we're trying to achieve with comprehensive plan, that would be super helpful if you can. I would just suggest we decouple them if possible. Yep, that's not a problem. The definitions are the definitions that I think we need to adopt regardless. So I think it's an important conversation to continue having, but there's a lot of other mandates that are coming at us. So once we get through these elements, we got to look at site plan and subdivision. Then we got to look at off-street parking and we got to look at residential uses and commercial structures. That's a lot of it's a lot of work to be doing, so if I can set it aside and decouple it but still keep it sort of a priority, that's that's fine with me. Plenty of other things to be working on and honestly like you know it's like I mentioned earlier we have no one in the room with us and I don't I think it does at least for that element that is beyond the scope of the law could benefit from a little bit more daylight. Thank you. It'd be great. All right, Ed, why don't we try again if you can hear. Us and can come off a mute if you have any comment you would like to provide. Oh I think this is working this time. No hopeful no he left the meeting. Okay any other questions or feedback or comments from the board? Great thank you Aaron. Any other feedback items that you are requesting from us? Nope I guess the if there's something that would be helpful some data that would be helpful when I do get the formal amendments in front of you I'd love to know that but I mean but if there isn't nothing and just continue to proceed that's fine too but if there's something that you're dying to know about that's related I can certainly try and dig up that information. Yeah I can don't I can speak a little bit to the data that helps me I will say like the visuals of you know what does 60% look like and what does 40% look like for us as we try to find the right impervious coverage standard. I find them extremely helpful. You've been providing them already, and that's probably the big thing for me. Perfect. Any other things that the board would like to see to help us inform our decision?
[59:56] Speaker D (unidentified): Janet has her hand up.
[59:57] Erin Zwerko: Oh, Janet, yes. Thank you.
[1:00:00] Speaker C (unidentified): This really isn't... I was looking at the revised definitions that were proposed, and they in one of them it was using a acronym i guess sod i think i should know what it means but i can't figure it out something development sure land overlay district i wonder whether it should be written out because i can do that it just sort of popped in there and it out it seemed out of context to me, so I wasn't. No problem. It was all really. Yeah. I agree with putting the multiplex or whatever you want to call them, the five unit, perhaps a bit on hold. And although maybe we could get some public input at another time, too.
[1:00:57] Erin Zwerko: That sounds good. All right. All right, any other comments? All right, seeing none, I think we can have a motion to adjourn.
[1:01:15] Denise Cameron: Make a motion to adjourn. Second.
[1:01:18] Erin Zwerko: Second. All right, we'll go down the roll call. Denise Cameron approves, let's see. Janet. Approve. Jerry. Approve. George. Approve. Thank you all. Have a good night.