It’s 7:02 p.m. and I’m calling the August 18th, 2026 Hamilton Planning Board meeting to order. Because we have a member on zoom. I’ll take roll call. I do note for the record, however, that this meeting is being recorded by HWCAM. So when I call your name, would you please indicate that you’re present? Uh, Jonathan, Poore.
Jonathan, Poore present. . .. Present. Darcy Dale. Darcy. Dale. Present. Beth. Herr. Present. Matt. Hamel. Matt. Hamel. Present. Marnie. Crouch, present. And I note that, uh, Jeff Austin and Valerie Peck advised me that they were not able to attend the meeting. And I see Bill approaching us. So he is present. Good. Okay. So, Bill, you’re present. Correct.
Yes. Okay. Uh, so the first item on our agenda is approval of the August 4th, 2026 minutes. Is there any discussion about those minutes? So I make a motion. Uh, right. Well, Darcy, you advised me that you would like the word compliant capitalized in the second line on page two.
And in the second, uh, subheading, uh, item B, discussion of recent and pending, recent and pending legislative amendments. The. Second to the last line from the bottom, the board noted that accessory dwelling unit Adu guidelines were recently updated. I don’t believe that we have any Adu guidelines, so I don’t think we updated them.
So I would suggest we delete that sentence. Uh, and other than that, I will entertain a motion. I move that we accept the minutes from August 4th, 2026. Second. Um, any further discussion? Uh, so when I call your name, please indicate whether you approve the minutes. Jonathan. Poore, Jonathan Poore. I will Wheaton. Bill Wheaton, I.
Am. Darcy. Dale. Darcy. Dale I. Beth Herr. I’m going to abstain. Uh, Matt Hamel. Matt Hamel. Marnie Crouch, aye. Uh, so, Mark, I have, um, the minutes with those two very minor edits. Okay. Uh, so.
We have several items on our agenda under other business, but I note that we have only one member attending the meeting in person. And I know that Andrew is going to speak to us about the dark sky bylaws and guidelines. So unless anybody has any objection, I will take, um, Andrew’s remarks out of order. Good evening. For the record of my name’s Andrew as Snow G.
1821 neighbor. Uh, I’m here tonight. Uh, as a member of the steering committee of a group that calls itself Health and Dark Sky. We formed about a year ago. Um, we work on. Planning and preserving the night sky here in Hamilton. And I’m here specifically to talk to you.
Um, about a meeting that we had, a presentation that we had last night with the Select board. So we met. Let the select board, we have a 30 minute presentation and discussion with them where we went through what we’ve been doing over the past year, which largely has been reviewing bylaws in other cities and towns in Massachusetts.
Reviewing the international dark Sky, their Massachusetts chapter has a model bylaw. We’ve also been talking to stakeholders here in Hamilton. So, for example, we talked to the police chief. We spoke to Superintendent Tracy, uh, Rick Mitchell from Hamilton Development Corporation, one of the major downtown building owners, Andrew DeFranco.
And I think I may have skipped 1 or 2, but we’re continuing to do that work. Um, in the presentation last night, we also reviewed with members of the Select Board some some very basic information about what is light pollution, what are the measures that can be taken to mitigate it? Many of which you’re very familiar with shielding. Um, intensity.
The the color, temperature of light, etc.. And then we review the select board, a number of provisions that one would expect to find in a dark sky bylaw. Um, as well as some of the issues that Hamilton is going to have to decide in order to move forward.
And one of the threshold issues is whether such a bylaw would be a general bylaw, or would it be a zoning bylaw? And the Hamilton Dark Sky recommended that it be a, and the Select board, after some discussion, and agreeing with that.
And the three reasons why a general bylaw would be advantageous is that one, it would apply to entities and uses that are exempt from local zoning. So, for example, the general lighting, the that regulated lighting would cover 40B projects. It would cover schools, municipal buildings, et cetera. Those entities are exempt from local zoning. So a zoning bylaw would not cover them.
The second issue is that a can require pre-existing lighting to comply with the new regulations. It would give them a period of time to come into compliance. But again, it can cover pre-existing lighting, zoning bylaw only looks forward. So it would only apply to new construction or substantial renovation. And the third reason is that a general bylaw at town meeting only requires a 50% vote.
The zoning bylaw requires a two thirds vote. So we discussed this issue as well as others. And the, um select board end up approving and supporting the notion of having a dark sky bylaw here in Hamilton and approved having it be a general bylaw, which means that the Select Board would be the one
to take the lead and take it to town meeting. They knew that we were appearing here before you tonight, so they asked us to to to bring to you their position. And in order to, uh, make it more formal, they didn’t want to take a vote because they a formal vote.
They have a chart that they’re trying to put together of all of their priorities and their action items over the next several years. They want to put this on that priority list. But the priority list, other things need to be added. It’s not in final form.
So they didn’t want to take a vote on that last night. Instead, what they did is they took a straw poll or a straw vote, and they went around and they asked each individual member.
Are you in favor of having the select, uh, support and move forward with the dark Sky bylaw being a , and the members were unanimous in favor of it? So we’re here tonight to communicate that to you. We’re also here to communicate, though, that we don’t want to lose the planning board. Um, you have a lot of expertise here in lighting, and I know several of you have dealt with lighting issues for years. I think we really need you.
We need your expertise. Not only that, but I must say it was quite masterful how you got the 3A zoning through town meeting. You are really quite good at doing that. And we would really hope that you would help us in this process.
Ideally, what Hamilton Dark Sky would like to see is a bylaw go to town meeting. It would have unanimous support of the Selectboard and the planning board. That would be our goal to move forward with that. Um, last night, the, um, the Selectboard appointed a liaison person for us to work with.
We would love to work with the planning board as well on that. The way we left it with the Selectboard last night is we’re going to continue to speak to stakeholders. We were going to speak to you tonight. They asked us to go back and do more work on what this might mean for 1 or 2 family residences.
What kind of dark sky lighting is out there for people for their porches or garage lights, and how easy or difficult it might be to convert some of the residential lighting over so that they were open to the notion that this would cover one and two family, but simply wanted to know a lot more about it.
I’m happy to review with you some of the other substantive issues that we talked about. I know you have other items on the agenda. We can come back at another time. Um, we’re also happy to talk to individual planning board members. Um, it’s really up to the planning board how they want to be involved.
Well, speaking up for myself and I, and I hope other planning board members chime in, I think your analysis of moving forward with a general bylaw, as opposed to a zoning bylaw, makes perfect sense to me. Uh, because otherwise some of the largest light polluters.
And I don’t mean that in a real disparaging way, but schools and other entities that are exempt from zoning really are the entities that need to address their lighting situation one way or another. And, um, so I think that that that’s, um, a really smart approach. And also because of the ease of getting it through town meeting.
So from my perspective, um, I mean, I’m happy to, to, uh, work with you. And I would suspect that other planning board members are as well. So, uh, I don’t know the type of, um, approach you’re going to take in terms of drafting whether you will be drafting, uh, a dark sky bylaw and presenting it to the select board.
I suspect that that would be the most expeditious way of handling it, rather than relying on a select board member to actually draft the bylaw. I think that having a bylaw with perhaps several options, uh, is a smart way to go.
I think the biggest issue is always going to be the single and two family houses, and I did run into Cathy, so I’m not I don’t want to take credit for this. Um, idea. But, uh, she mentioned that there’s the nuisance factor.
So if a property owners in, in, uh, single or two family homes have egregious lighting, that’s, uh, flooding your bedroom, that can be addressed as a nuisance as opposed to, um, overtly regulating, um, residential homeowners other than condominium associations and something like that. So I think that’s where, you know, there’s the nuance comes in. So that that’s my $0.02. But, you know, if you do have a draft of something, we’d be, you know, happy to.
I had a I had a question about the retroactive feature. So. Would that apply to existing lighting that wears out and needs replacement. So if you’re going to replace it, you have to replace it with a dark sky compliant fixture.
Or would that require, you know, homeowners and businesses to rip out all the lighting that they currently have and put in its place? Dark sky compliance lighting, which could be quite an expense. I think it depends what Hamilton wants to do. We looked at how other towns dealt with the issue and for example, Maynard just passed a dark sky bylaw in the springtime.
Their bylaw is only covering future, uh, and new lighting. If you look at, um, Nantucket, Nantucket passed a bylaw a few years ago, and they’re getting it. They’re giving everyone five years to come into compliance. If you then look at Chelmsford, which again, um, passed on this past spring. There’s only covers commercial.
And if you put ten years to come into compliance. So, um, I think it really depends what approach Hamilton wants to take. And again, there’s a whole range of options out there and. Some. I have happy assignments to work with. And on the steering committee for Hamilton. Dark Sky I was here before.
I just wanted to say that when we met with Eric, Tracy and I got to say that the school buildings and the biggest offenders in town, um, in terms of egregious lighting. Um, that a lot of after hours, uh, photos, um, around town and, um, and Eric Tracy acknowledged it.
Um, and not only that, but as we, uh, spoke with he and who else would I speak with? Curtis? The facilities director. Thank you. I’m terrible things.
Um, Curtis has been in place for a year, and he’s just grappling with the technology that they have that they don’t have a handle on where their timers are for having work. Some of them aren’t working at all. Um, or, uh, the flexibility that’s inherent in some of the systems for toning down the intensity. But the, the thing that I really wanted to say was, um, it was quite surprising.
But when we talked about a five year potential phase in Eric Tracy thought that that would not be a problem in terms of financial, um, in terms of cost, that that the grants were out there. He was confident that they could, um, that they could manage, uh, with that. So, uh.
There was one other thing I wanted to say, which was that, um, uh, there’s also the possibility of, uh, exempting from the bylaw things like streetlights. That’s a big question. We really don’t have a handle yet on exactly what the situation is with regard to the potential for, um, for the cost of, uh, adapting the street lights and penalty.
But it had not been our intent originally, as we were thinking about it, to include them in the bylaw or the sports lighting. Um, at the high school, which is already, uh, dark sky compliant. So, if I may add, I, I also support the approach.
Uh, what I think is interesting to note is that most bylaws and regulations are triggered by somebody requesting something like, for example, in zoning bylaws, somebody requesting a permit. And so that gives you the leverage for somebody to comply with something when, when somebody’s not asking for a permit or for a license or for any, you know, any, any sort of a, um, uh, other work, the challenge is sort of.
enforcement., monitoring and enforcement. It’s it’s complicated. And so what I would encourage you to do is to look at models where they’ve actually done that. And I and I not to get too specific here, but I would steer away from places like Nantucket. Nantucket. So it’s own unique cultural situation.
Um, and uh, I would look to more, more sort of run of the mill towns and see how they’ve handled that kind of thing, where it it requires monitoring and enforcement, um, of some sort.
We have looked at that and um, in particular the, uh, dark Sky model bylaw, uh, is very informative as well as the other towns, but generally the enforcement officer is the building inspector, plus plus the public safety officers. Um, I think it would either be, as you said, new construction. Where? Um, it’s picked up.
Um, or complaints would come in to the building inspector, who might ask the police officers to check it out when they drive around at night. Um, but we were not anticipating that there would be lighting police. I mean, we’re not interested in to drive around checklist. But if you if you ask for five year compliance or ten year compliance, you have to figure out what that mechanism is, that you get to compliance.
It’s not that easy because you don’t have that mechanism of people asking for for a permit where you’ve got a lever you can pull, there’s no lever to pull. So I would just encourage you to look at models of that. That’s all. Um, but I think that, um.
It’s the same as our, our watering ban or other things. I think we’re going to get most people to comply. People whose property is, you know, visible and on Bay road or the downtown businesses or the schools, I think will certainly come into compliance if people’s houses are off the road, down a driveway.
I think they’re going to be able to do whatever they want. And we’re not expecting that. The police will be checking on or anyone else will. If a neighbor doesn’t complain, they’re not an egregious violation. Um, you know, as long as we got a certain level of compliance, I think we should congratulate ourselves and move forward. Um, that’s. Not.
I think it’s been interesting point. Of course. Um, and, uh, it it might be reasonable to do an audit. Um, if we had some funding, uh, of, um, commercial and, uh, municipal and school building lighting and then, um, check in with those property owners or managers, um, over, over the course of that time
period. Um, uh, as a mechanism of action. Also. I suspect that part of the bylaw will involve a requirement that lights are turned off at a certain time. So just hypothetically, this is total, totally hypothetical. Say it. The Crosby’s parking lot.
All the stores are closed after 10:00, so the lights would have to be dimmed or turn turned way down at a certain time. So it will be obvious if someone’s not in compliance any. You know, the policemen or. And women driving by can see that and be informed of it so that that part of the enforcement might be relatively easy.
If you have as part of the ordinance that when, when buildings are not being used, when playing fields are not being used, the lights are turned off. So if they’re left on, they’re out of compliance. And it’s pretty obvious. And I think to your other point is that hopefully when people get educated, they’ll walk around and drive around and say, wow, this lighting is awful.
And and they’ll voluntarily get with the program because they’ll see the benefit of it in the long run. But again. People who aren’t willing to do it and whose properties are not visible, I don’t think there’s anything we can do about that. Right. Um. A yeah, just a comment.
I to support the general approach to to the zoning. I fully support the dark Skies program. I think, uh, if you if if you set up a committee that has some of the public involved in it, not just experts on, uh, you know, lighting and writing codes, but, uh, get some public participation. But it’s possible I’ve seen it.
Some towns where you thought you didn’t know how much it would be impacted by the cost of people changing lights on a residential level. I don’t think it’s a huge cost. And, um, because there’s nothing extraordinary about it. Putting a shield on a on a light or a down light.
And, uh, so I don’t think it’s a big cost. But what some towns do, I think is run a program, maybe get some grant money and offer to replace, have homeowners come and maybe sign up and replace lights that they if they feel as though they’re, uh, in other words, get them to do it voluntarily, you know, rather than force
people to do things. I think that’s going to be one of the big objections the public will have at a town meeting. Is the retroactive part of it. Um, but if you can mitigate that somehow, you know, with some, some types of program and just again, I don’t think it’s a big, uh, it’s a big cost shift.
You know, people don’t typically change their garage lights, you know, every five years or so. But but I think if, if people if there is a trend and if there are people, I think see a movement in doing it, they’ll voluntarily, uh, I think change their lights.
And I think you’ll see a large number of people do that. So I think I think that’s a good approach as a purist as, as opposed to forcing people to you must do this in five years. Um. I think garage lights will probably be the easiest.
They tend to be floodlights, which you can tip all the way down, and then you just change the light bulb out to a warmer, perhaps less intense. I think the more expensive item for people will be their porch lights. The sconces on either side of their doors.
And maybe if people have lights at the end of their driveways, those those could be expensive, depending on what people have today and what they want. Um, I was just looking today, you know, Lowe’s has some very simple lantern looking lights but that are dark sky compliant because the light comes from up above. Um, so we’re starting to see more of those at places like Home Depot. And we’re going.
To have to look for them. They’re not available in the store. You have to look online. But I think we would have to help people understand what’s out there, where you go. Yeah. And whether they can do some kind of simple retrofit or whether they would need an entirely new light fixture.
I think if you’re going to make it mandatory to come into compliance, especially for residential use, you have to provide 5 to 10 years, because if you were to just have an ordinance that said people have to go out and buy dark sky compliant lighting, that would probably be an unconstitutional
taking. And it wouldn’t it wouldn’t pass muster. I mean, if it’s based on health, safety and welfare. But I agree with you that we should give people a fair amount of time. So for homeowners, they need to change this guidance on their point.
I mean, that’s that’s really not, you know, so I think that would be a little bit dicey. I think it would either be five years or ten. Years. And and that’s reasonable, you know, because. The lights. The lights have to be. Replaced anyway, you know. And you can get different color lights. And whatnot.
Any other thoughts or comments? Yes. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for, um, promoting, you know, the Dark Skies Initiative. It’s been a long time. They started back in the 80s and and we haven’t really seen a lot of movement, but maybe this will help get other towns to to comply or get their own bylaws too.
So thank you. And I think one of the things that’s happened is, you know, in the past ten years, we’ve had LED lighting and it’s become so much cheaper and there’s much more lighting, it’s much brighter. It’s much bluer, and landscape lighting up, lighting is becoming very popular.
Um, so it’s different lighting situation than we had in the 80s. And, um, when we drove around at night and took pictures, not only was there some pretty bad and egregious lighting, but we also saw examples of some pretty good lighting as well.
So I think we have an opportunity to step in now, try to fix what’s not very good and put something in place. So when we move forward and you know, more development or happens in Hamilton, it’s done with really good responsible lighting and we don’t end up in the situation where some of our adjacent towns are in right now. Well, we have a number of other items.
But, you know, I would propose that we I don’t know if a is the appropriate thing, but I think we should support, uh, the and support the planning board’s, um, goal of having a placed on the warrant. For the. Annual town meeting. In the spring. So. Um, how about all in favor? Uh. Are you in favor? She is. She is.
In her hand. So, uh, it’s not a formal vote, but. Okay, it’s almost as good. As a straw poll. Okay. So thank you. We will be back. Is very supportive of this effort. And I will send some pictures to. Pardon me. I’d be interested in seeing some of the pictures examples that you have.
The good and the bad. And as parting wisdom I would echo Amos. Um, sort of, uh, guidance toward moving toward education rather than enforcement. You know, that’s that’s, I think, a stronger lead. And the Selectboard talked about that as well. So we’re especially on the residential. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
That might be worth um, I think you’re doing the right things and talking to a lot of different people might be worth talking to. The historic district commission, um, and some of the private schools, like the Pingree School. They’re on our list because we’ve heard complaints about the lighting at Pingree School.
Um, so they’re they’re certainly already on our list. The historic district commission. That’s a very good idea. Thank you. Council on aging. It’d be interesting to see how the folks there responded to this. Gordon-Conwell. Yes. They’re on our list as well. Already. We’ve we already have some pictures of some egregious lighting there. So, um.
They used to have the. Church spire. Lit up. You could see it from, you know, miles around. It wasn’t casting. It was. It was a glow. But you could you could you could see it from elsewhere. Some of the the worst lighting of the the historical lighting. All right, all right. Well. Thank you. Very much.
Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, so the zoning changes necessitated, necessitated by recent, uh, legislation. And this really was, um, uh, legislation that mostly affects the work of the, uh, ZBA.
So, Mike, you said that, uh, there was a meeting of the, that there would be a meeting of the ZBA and you would apprise us of whether, uh, the ZBA would take the laboring oar in amending or presenting a draft amendment to the, uh, zoning bylaw section five, or whether town council would be involved or how this is going to play out.
So that or whether we’re going to wait and for guidance from the Commonwealth, even though the law is in effect, uh, it went into effect when it was passed. I think. Yeah, there was that meeting a few weeks ago. I think it’s going to be since the planning board, you know, usually, um, leads zoning amendment changes.
Probably will be the planning board, but, um, this is a fairly sort of housekeeping type measure. If, um, even if the town were not to support the changes, unfortunately, we can’t, um, we can’t enforce what’s in the zoning bylaw because of the changes in state law. So, um, it’s really sort of a housekeeping measure.
Um, and I think how I left with Robin, as I would, um, I would propose some changes and run them by her. And as I said, it’s it’s not very interesting. It’s just we’re taking the state law and incorporating into the bylaw.
But you’re suggesting that at town meeting it would be the planning board that, uh, proposed. Yes. The, um. Yes. Okay. So we can, um, stay abreast of that. So when you have some drafts, we can look at it, because if we’re going to be responsible for presenting it, we want to make sure that. Uh. We know what’s in it. We can answer questions about it.
And, uh, it looks good. Okay. Next item definitions. That was, um, uh, Jeff Austin’s baby. And he is not here. So I know that is something that we really need to get on top of. I think. Jonathan, you were quite strong in your view that the definitions are rather appalling.
Some of them, not all of them, obviously, but, um, I know that the building inspector had proposed some changes to the language. Uh, so I’m not sure where he stands on some of these changes. Um, or necessary amendments to some of the definitions. So, uh, we’ll have to wait on that.
But not too long because I think that is a bigger project than I first anticipated. If we start changing definitions. Was he looking at it from a standpoint of, um, equating the building code language with those? I think he was just trying to organize it so you could find the definition you were looking at instead of going, wait a
minute, we’re the alphabetical order. Go. You know, because it was very it’s very confusing when you want to find a definition. Sometimes it’s part of an alphabetical list. Sometimes it’s listed under the applicable zoning bylaw. So try and reorganize it in a way that makes sense. But he wasn’t going to grapple with any particular definitions.
So I think that. Um, so what we have is just a composite from all parts of our bylaws of definitions and. Right, right. Yeah. And they’re kind of a mishmash. They’re kind of all in, they’re all thrown in there except inclusionary housing.
The open space, farmland Preservation Development Bylaw, which if all goes to plan, will be deleted in any event. Um, and so to try and organize the definitions in a way so that if someone wants to look it up, they can find it, it’s either a general definition applicable to all bylaws, or if it’s pertinent to a specific bylaw.
I think then that those definitions for specific bylaws should be separated from the alphabetical list. And clearly identified, um, in a separate section. So rather than have, for example, inclusionary high housing bylaw definitions buried within the general definitions, extract them and have them separated so that if someone was just looking at
that section of the zoning bylaw, they could go right to inclusionary housing and wouldn’t have to sort through the alphabetical list of definitions. So that is what I’m hoping he will do.
And then at some point, I think that the planning board members should go through the definitions, and if there are any ones that are particularly troublesome to highlight them so that we can, um, make any, uh, pertinent corrections. Does that make sense? You know, and the other thing too, is we have an incredible number of definitions pertaining to adult bookstores. We have none in town.
So that really doesn’t need to be buried in the definitions. It could be, um, separated out. Um, somewhere. So we’ll have to wait on that. Um, but perhaps I’ll communicate with, uh, Jeff to see how he’s progressing on. That. So the groundwater protection overlay. District.
I think it I suggested, Mark, that you might reach out to the DEP to see if they had any words of wisdom as to how we could proceed. Um, with potentially amending this to take into account new technologies. Yeah. I talked to our conservation agent. And she gave me a contact.
So I spoke to a woman there named Alicia and forwarded her the, um, the existing language and told her what the planning board’s goal is. Um, so I don’t have anything back from them yet, but, um, I have sent it along at least. So we’ve initiated the process of getting some expertise. Um, at no cost. Yes. I also sent it to the Ipswich River Watershed Association. The, uh, the Ipswich River Watershed Association. Yes.
Oh, that’s a good idea. Yeah. Okay. And we dealt with the dark skies. Uh, and Adu guidelines. That’s one that I am working on. I don’t have it quite yet to a place where I’d like.
I’m happy comfortable sharing it with you, but it is, um, a document that I am working on and hopefully within the next couple of weeks, I’ll have something like at least a draft I can share with you. Right? And, um, this is not something that has to be approved at town meeting. These are just guidelines. So, uh, well, there may be some, uh, impetus to get it done.
I don’t see that there’s, um, an emergency here. Um, do you know, I think I might have asked you this. How many ADUs? I was surprised. Wasn’t there, like, almost a dozen or something. Eight. I think there were eight the first year, so. Yeah, and that’s just the first year. So probably a dozen in that ballpark.
But do you have any sense of whether these ADUs or, um, you know, 1 or 2 acre lots or four acre lots or whether they’re downtown? Um. Good question. Um, I deal with them because I have to assign the addresses to them.
So I do see them, um, more of them are detached, so they’re, um, separate buildings and the the addressing system, if it’s building is behind the primary residence, the state wants us to give the address, the number that it currently has, plus r, which it’s as simple as rear. So most of them are getting that address. Um, so most of them are behind the primary dwelling.
So do they come in with they must come in with some kind of plot plan. Yes. It’d be fun to have a little composite of, you know, the the eight plot plot plans that we could look at and see what people are actually, you know, dreaming up.
Yeah. What I could do for the next meeting is show a map of where the last year and a half. Or a slide of the composite. Yeah, yeah. You know, plans. So we could see whether people just just to get an idea about what people are thinking.
Is it all in one part of town or is it all over the place? I think it’s all over the place. But generally on larger lots. Okay, right. I think that that where the issue would probably, uh, arise is, is too downtown where they’re more visible, but if they’re on larger lots behind larger houses, then, um, it, it
may not be, um, affecting people as much as if they if. There’s no room on the land in the downtown because of the if you’re talking about between Willow and Union, say, because it’s a septic system. I think, um. Oh. Brian Stein. Brian Stein put an Adu on his his property down. Yeah.
I know there’s an Adu in Woodland Mead and that’s generated some controversy. So there might be over a garage or something. Yeah. Yeah. I. Don’t know. Yeah. So I’m curious about because. Doesn’t any of you have to have a separate septic system. No, I can tell you I don’t believe so.
I think you can tie in to the existing. If you have enough. If you have. Yeah. Otherwise you have to update it, I think. Yeah. Bedroom count. I don’t know if they like to say I don’t know. Jonathan. Do you know two septic systems on one lot.. You really usually can’t do that? I don’t think so. They would just count bedrooms.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I’m curious about those package ADUs that you see now there. I mean, I see them in magazines. I think architectural modular that, um, uh. They tend to be more modern, you know, less complicated, less detailed. Um, the simple forms to them.
But, um, I’m wondering, in drafting guidelines, you know, how are you going to take into account if someone’s preference to, for a particular style of Adu? And I think the guidelines are going to have to be really carefully drafted, I think, to.
You have to I mean, if you if you if you have an ancillary apartment. Yeah. In a, in a larger house, which you can and if it has a separate kitchen, I think our bylaw requires that it have its own septic system. Excuse me.
So you you wouldn’t want to sort of have one set of standards for that kind of a dwelling unit and another set of standards for something that was actually sort of more what we think of as an Adu. Um, I mean, if one has to have a separate septic system, then the other should, or if one doesn’t need a separate septic system, then the other doesn’t has to be a certain amount of parity.
I would think, between an auxiliary, an apartment and an Adu. Yeah. I mean Board of Health, I’m curious how they handle, uh, ADUs because the, you know, the rule of thumb is, you know, because they look at it per bedroom and they got 10,000ft per bedroom as their count, that if you have a house and a
small lot like in the downtown area, we’re on a half acre lot, you know, you already have if you have a house that has several bathrooms in it, you know, you got a system, you probably have a 1500 gallon septic tank and field and, you know, 20,000ft, um, a half acre.
That’s two bedrooms, you know, and a half acre lot. So I’m not sure how they’re going to they’re going to deal with or what their reaction to, uh, to the ADUs are because that’s a, you know, already they’re maxed out. You know, what folks sometimes do is as a strategy, they’ll decommission a bedroom. Yeah, yeah.
You know, so the way you decommission, I mean, that sounds like a goofy word, but what the way you do it is you have to take the door off and you take the closets out so that it can’t be a closed space with a closet. And that’s usually how building inspectors. But but you.
Have to. That’s how people get around the separate kitchen. Do they have a hot plate? And I think a refrigerator, but no sink. Or there’s some set of guidelines about about whether you actually have a second kitchen or not in the same sort of thing.
If there’s legitimate cooking facilities, usually it’s considered a kitchen, but you can have a refrigerator and a sink. So yeah. Anyway, those are those are gray areas that get negotiated with with, um, inspection services. So yeah. Yeah. And they’re not exempt from the, the septic requirements.
So some lots you can’t get an Adu on even if it’s permitted by. Right. You just if you can’t make the math work on the septic, you can’t have it. Yeah. I mean it would be much bigger problem if we had a sewer system. Yes. Town sewer system. Yeah.
So, you know, I’ve not heard except in my neighbor, any complaints about, um, ADUs? No. It’s usually, um, I think one thing that we got in our requirements that was really good is, um, the state let us do is you can’t build an ADU in the front yard.
That’s one of the things that another town I worked in, someone did that and everyone complained about it. It’s just kind of a it’s a eyesore. So, um, you can. I think the way we set it up here is that you can’t build it in the front yard unless you file a special permit with the planning board, and maybe there’s some weird sort of.
Your plot has some sort of weird hardship. Um, but typically we don’t allow you to build it in the front yard. Well, the guidelines correct me if I’m wrong or just really designed to address the compatibility between the Adu and the main house. And perhaps the scale of the neighborhood.
And how it sort of interacts in the neighborhood. So you’re hopefully not getting complaints from your neighbors, things like that. There’s good, good opportunities to talk about privacy issues, parking and driveway strategies, open space strategies, space between buildings, things like that. Right? Right. Not just style.
Style should be to a point, should be kind of off the. Subject. But scale. And it’s more about siting and relationships than style. Mark, I sent you that New York Times article. You remember that? I think so the person in Minnesota or. No, no, it’s it was New York City, I think. Okay. And they they went and looked at ADUs.
Some of them were really crazy, very innovative, you know, not not for Hamilton, but, you know, very interesting. Solutions. I think Ikea has, uh, you know, the Swedish company has an Adu, uh, model you can purchase. Oh, wow. I like checked how much I don’t know. It’s.
Good to say this was a couple of years ago. They came out with it, but. Interesting. But they’re. I mean, it’s a hand build one. And, you know, Jonathan knows, uh, build 900ft. It’s going to cost a lot of money per square foot.
As you compress the square footage, the cost per square foot goes up. So I’ve seen ADUs come in at at $1,000 a square foot. Yes. Right. Well. $1,000 a square foot for regular Adu. Just because everything’s compressed. Okay. So work in progress. Um, next item, the amendments to the open space and Farmland Preservation Development Bylaw and the state overlay district.
So, uh, that is coming along quite nicely. Uh. We have combined the two bylaws and made every effort to simplify the process. Um. So, uh, we’re not quite ready to give you the, uh, final version of, I use that term in parentheses, um, for your review, but, uh, we’re getting closer all the time, and, uh,
so what Emil has done is, um. Highlighted the process, and he can go through this, uh, with you and, uh, so, so essentially what we’re proposing here is a conservation subdivision, design development, and the open space and farmland development bylaw really purports to be a conservation subdivision. It’s just a bit of a cumbersome one. So we’re we’re.
You know, really trying to. Make that process. Um, accessible. And if a developer comes in and follows the, um, design process that they’ll have a real. Uh. Smooth pathway to success if they follow the bylaw. So I’ll let Emil speak to the process. And he has a bit of a, um, I think a slide presentation.
And what I did, um, you know, just as an exercise and I’ll pass it around is, um, I and I will confess, I ask ChatGPT to in table format, compare the Massachusetts subdivision, subdivision control law.
The Hamilton subdivision regulations, and the conservation subdivision design booklet that was put out by the Massachusetts, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, and basically is a is a booklet helping towns implement conservation. Um subdivisions. So the comparison is not with what a Hamilton is proposing, but a. Um, advanced by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
So it’s just, um, it really I gave ChatGPT very specific extra instructions as to what to look at specifically. And that’s exactly what it did. And so it’s kind of a nifty little, uh, comparison just for your edification. So I’ll pass that around. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Yeah. This is very, uh, what Marnie just handed out is very interesting document. And, uh, the left hand column.
I won’t go over it, but the topic column really are the, uh, the mechanisms or the the provisions that you typically find in our code. So things like yield plan, site site analysis and so forth, they all will play a role in our, uh, sub conservation subdivision. Um, bylaw. I put together.
This is a very brief and this is like a primer. Uh, this might be old information for some people, but for maybe I thought some new members not familiar with it. Um, and this might even be something that could be used down the line when presenting to the general public about what it is.
What’s the difference between what we already have and what we’re trying to create here? Uh, beginning with this first slide, which is, um, why is this before the board? Um, it’s just an outline. Conventional bylaws divide buildable land into house lots and streets. Nothing on a parcel is set aside.
Conservation bylaws keep the same number of homes would place them on part of the site, permanently protecting the rest. Uh, and it’s the choices. Procedural. Uh, what differs is the design sequence. And that’s the key that we’re, uh, we’re working on spending a lot of time on in our subdivision.
Those mechanisms that in the end, separate conservation subdivision with from conventional subdivision bylaws. Next slide. Conservation subdivision. What does it do? It. It allows the same number of homes on a conventional plan would yield sited on smaller lots so a substantial share of the tract stays permanently undeveloped.
That’s the basis for the development is guided to the least sensitive soil and steep slopes, wetlands and farm fields, Historic features and habitat corridors are set aside. First protected land is then held under a permanent conservation restriction by a land trust. The town or homeowners association, um, so this this again, is the kind of frame, sort of what it is that we’re trying to create.
The next slide. So these are two pictures of the same parcel, uh, two bylaws. However, the conventional on the left is a full lot division, all buildable buildable land becomes lots and streets.
That’s that’s been the criticism of the zoning laws that we have or the subdivision laws that we have, because it really is a land grab in terms of when you’re building houses, you start at the wrong end of this process. You start with roads and lots so that you fill up the entire site with property. So you’re essentially right away excluding people from using a good part of the property. Conservation is clustered with protected land.
Homes sit on a smaller lots in one portion of the site, 50 to 70% stay undivided and protected in perpetuity. Uh, we’re sort of looking at 50%. And I think, as Marnie said, we’re working on this.
We’re going to come up with a there there are several decisions that are really key, and we’re going to bring those to the planning board for discussion and decision down the line.
What are some of these things like, uh, bonus housing bonuses? What what should we be doing that this is not going to be we’re going to create, uh, maybe one scenario and then, um, bring that to the planning board. And next slide. So what the bylaw language controls this is interesting. The provisions, overall density, lot dimensions, open space protection ownership and upkeep and review process.
And again, a conventional versus, uh, conservation just the side by side, just in simple language comparing the two why how they would different differ over um over time. Um again conventional over overall density set by minimum lot size across the whole tract. We’re all familiar with that.
The way that works, if it’s a one acre, you take all developable land and divide it by 40,000 square feet, and that’s going to after subtracting for the roads. Um, and a portion of the undeveloped part of it, um, that establishes how many dwelling units can be on it beyond it. The conservation is density neutral. Same yield calculated from a base plan.
So this is this is something we’re going to get into some detail later the yield. But uh, again same same number of buildings on smaller lots will then yield open space that can be made available to the general public, you know, and held in the conservation. Next slide. Uh, key decisions and common benchmarks. Um, minimum tract size.
What we’ve been talking about is to have a trigger of decision to make this mandatory or voluntary is is a big decision. We talked about doing this, uh. Those of us who are on here a long time ago. Bill, you’re one.
And certainly Marnie, but the flexible bylaw that the planning board was trying to use before, there’s been a lot of attempt through the history of zoning to create more flexibility within the zoning so that flexible bylaw has been done in many ways over the years.
But what we’re trying to do in this case is to, um, make it to a large extent, make it desirable for a developer to follow this conservation, design, development strategy using this design process make it desirable for them to do it as a choice. However, what we’d like to do in which some towns have done have it have a trigger of five acres, say, or greater, equal to or greater than five acres, or five lots.
That’s the minimum tract size that would say above and beyond that, you then have to go this CSD route conservation subdivision route and follow this particular bylaw. And as the drafting note says, it’s set low enough so that the bylaw actually gets used in Hamilton.
I guess one of the problems in the past, when the open space that it was really sort of lay dormant, nobody ever used it for what was intended. And Marnie said it’s little was a little cumbersome, and it only kind of nodded at conservation. The Section 8.1.
12 was the section that would set sort of tips it off in, in much plainer language that it was conservation, development oriented, uh, open space required the next 150% of the tract is what we’re doing. It can vary 50 to 70 in some areas, measure against buildable land, not gross acreage.
Um, one of the things we’ve been wondering about is, is do we differentiate between lots that have, say, a higher percentage of undeveloped land? For example, if you have a lot of wetlands on your property, if you have a five acre lot with a lot of wetlands on it, and if in fact, the wetlands area out is larger than your developable area, should we take under consideration
changing the 50% of that or not? And so that’s those are some of the questions that were, uh, trying to play with the lot reduction area reduction, uh, 50 to 75% of the base, the basin, say a one acre zoning, uh, is 40,000 square feet, or a
is 80,000ft. So one one thought is to take, uh, allow a 50 or pair with a clear frontage and setback table. So it’s administratively, uh, but make that a lot area required 50% of the base. In other words, if it’s in an RA district, 50% of the 80,000ft is one acre, 40,000 square feet.
If it’s in an R-1, B, which is 40,000 currently, look for lots that are 20,000 maximum. Um, and so forth. And then R-1, a of course 20,000 would go down to ten or even a little bit lower. Then incentives. Uh, one of the common ones is density bonuses 0 to 25%.
This is something that has to get capped. Uh, on this site because, um, so we again, this is a carrot and stick thing. The carrot is saying to the builder, if you build a certain number of affordable houses in a, you actually go above what’s required.
You maybe get a bonus of a house for any additional or give. If you give more open space to the town more than the state of 50%, then maybe there’s a bonus. Uh, incentive to, um, increase the density a little bit.
These are kind of tricky, but and these are going to require kind of a road testing, which is something that’s still we have to work out in some detail. If this were to be designed in this manner, what a what are the potential outcomes that we want to be sure we’re not missing something. Uh, permits. What’s unusual about this one? It’s an early special permit. This is built around a three, uh, three meeting or three stage process.
Beginning. Stage one being the, um, pre-application meeting. Uh, which we’ll get into a little bit on the next chart, and then we go to the preliminary meeting and finally, the definitive plans when they’re submitted, fully engineered, those are the three stages that Be critical in this process.
Uh, and the ownership. Um, of open space is to be determined based on the particular particular lot. Mark, can you change the slide? Sure. So the core provisions to the draft, these are things that we did research on a number of, uh, bylaws, conservation bylaws.
Uh, and case files on these bylaws and these these are generally what the parts of the bylaw that has started writing and that we really have to deal with. Purposes number one. Eligibility and uses. Number two, the procedures. Three, the yield determination, of course, which is what your base. Number of dwellings and so forth.
Um, and on that note, just one other thing. The yield, uh, one thing in the use is that we’re looking at is multifamily houses. So not everything is a single family unit on a lot. However small it is. But we wondered if we could get introduced some multifamily up to a limit of three, maybe a three unit per building.
So we don’t get too large a building. Uh, and, uh, the, the problem with multifamily is how do you determine density? It isn’t the number of buildings. Uh, it could be dwelling units, but, uh, it also could be and is typically done with multi plex buildings. It’s the number of bedrooms.
And again, that’s useful from the Board of Health standpoint because in the end that’s going to be the test of the overbuilding or not. And that’s something we have to again work into the calculations. Uh, open space standards. Um, again, we’re pretty much set on the 50. Again, some places go up to 70%, but dimensional flexibility. A lot area, that’s what we’re trying.
That’s what we’re reducing down to at least 50%. Frontage and setbacks will relate to the new. They can’t follow the existing frontages and setbacks because we’re going to reduce the lot size. Stay clearly with the conventional standards are waived by right. Uh ownership and steward. That’s for the land stewardship. That’s the land design review.
Uh, the five step design process again, which is, I think the next slide, you have that mark. Yes. And this is familiar. This comes from Section 8.1.12 in the, uh, uh, open space bylaw that we have. So conservation bylaws reverse the order in which a plan is drawn.
Land is protected before lot lines are set. Not after. This is the key thing. Um, that this bylaw works on. So number one, identify conservation resources. Uh, that’s an inventory of the wetlands, floodplains, steep slopes and so forth. Identify them and delineate them on a map. Delineate the developable area, which is the second one.
That means this is going to be. So where does your development, having done this inventory of conservation resources. What’s left on it is going to be open space.
So outside that open space, it’s where you’re going to you’re going to draw your line to delineate between what is developable and what is not developable. Number three, you locate the buildings and dwellings. Again, those streets drawn. Uh, so you’re placing buildings now to fit into along, you know, maybe along an edge of a woods or something. Site the dwellings on the remaining land oriented toward the preserved open space.
Now you draw the streets, number four, to connect all the buildings. Again, all of this is done outside the open space. And, uh, laying that out. And finally, if you have lot lines, because this could be a condominium project, you locate them as the last step. So what it says in the bottom, the conventional plans run this sequence backwards.
Lots first with whatever’s left, call whatever is left open space. Next slide. We’ll go over this one in a lot of detail, but I, I felt it was easier for me anyway to to get a grasp of what’s, what’s going on, what’s required at what, what stage.
So this is a matrix. Uh, key decisions by stage. And if you look in the right hand three columns, there’s the pre-application stage, which is concept meeting. There’s a preliminary stage which is design process and a definitive, uh, stage, which is the final engineered drawings from the developer.
The last two, the preliminary and definitive plans are what are required now in our, uh, conventional subdivision regulations. So what is new here is to really we’re we’re making it mandatory for a pre-application. And then then there are two columns to the left. The first one is agenda and discussion points. And then required content and submissions.
So on the right hand side you see this is all pre-application stage where the check mark is. So the agenda design review process, this is where we go over with developer. The five step process site content where we discussed the placement and within the town’s master plan and relationship. So the site context is what’s going on outside this particular parcel.
You know, are there say um, oh, corridors, wildlife corridors that extend from outside this property onto the property or not, things like that. That’s the site context. And the sidewalk is the next one, which is planning Board and Conservation Commission, Commission to a sidewalk site visit. And then we’ll review the timeline.
Uh, and then meeting participants on the bottom. Now the required content in this site context map, which is what we’re requiring them to do in a sketch fashion, do a broad view of nearby natural, historical, cultural, visual features, resources, public open space and connecting roads. So we’re asking the developer to give us a sketch. At this stage.
Uh, before they do that sketch, they have to do the existing conditions, site analysis, map, where they do a high level inventory and sketch of primary secondary resources. We’ve talked talked about these before with um, Section 8.1.12 and then finally the sketch plan. This is lightly engineered.
This is not really a heavily drawn. The idea is for what’s appealing to a developer is you’re not asking for hard engineering at this stage. You’re just saying give us something a little bit more than on the back of a napkin. But it should be done in CAD.
Uh, or by land surveyor, landscape architect, perhaps in, uh. So not just freehand stuff, but just in a general view. Before you start incurring a lot of expenses with engineering, have the conversation with the planning board to see if you’re on track and on schedule. So that’s the pre meeting.
And the preliminary meeting is the next page. Next slide. So the agenda here is uh now we’re going to talk about maximum density. Uh so the agenda and discussion points density open space configuration infrastructure layout. Again schematic cross department review. Get input from other departments. Feedback emergency services and so forth. Uh, public input.
This is where this would be a public meeting. Uh, maybe an public hearing. And then conditional, uh, special permit. So this is where we’re going to open up the prospect to them of just we’re going to start with a special permit for approval.
Um, at the end of this, um, this hearing, the preliminary, there might be two meetings here, but this is this is sort of the discussion points that need to be done at this stage. The preliminary stage. And as far as the required content, the plans, the conservation preliminary plan, it’s formal scaled plans. Uh, showing all the boundaries, north orientation development.
So this is the beginning of actual, uh, graphic drawings, resource overlay, clear mapping of natural, historic, cultural, and visual resources and so forth. Topographic data yield plan. The yield plan, uh, can either be done through a base density derived either from a formula or from a conventional subdivision plan.
They have an option, for example, I’m at the 133 Essex um, Toll Brothers did a conventional subdivision plan for Gordon Conwell. They came up with like a 52 subdivision for one acre zoning on their 100 acre lot. I guess you remember that? That’s a conventional subdivision plan, and it was the entire 100 acres full of lots. Um, but.
So that’s one way they could do it. Or they could use a formula which is more common. And again, they might choose the yield plan on a formula because it’s, um, an a formula.
It’s simply once they identify all the resources and take away the constrained areas like wetlands, floodplains, uh, steep slopes, once they take away all of that, um, and usually there’s a multiplier for some reason, the state allows 50% of it can be used as, uh, to calculate your developable area, 50% of all the wetlands can be included in developable, even though you can’t really develop on it.
That’s the state estate directive, I guess. And anyway, that in the formula and then you take away 10% of that developable area for potential road systems and so forth, and then you divide it by whatever the base density is in that particular zone. If it’s in a zone, it’s 80,000ft.
If it’s an R-1, B, it’s a 40,000 or 1 A, a 20,000. So that tells you how many the yield being then the number of lots, the number of dwellings, not the number of bedrooms. So this has got to get connected. The number of bedrooms with the yield. Um, so that’s kind of a in progress.
Prelim preliminary infrastructure plan. So now we’re going to get slightly engineered roads. Well locations, public drainage corridors and so forth. And a list of abutters. Um, again, these are the two columns for the preliminary stage. And then the final stage is the next last slide. Again, this would be a public hearing.
So now the special permit, uh, conditional. And so what probably will happen is that in the second preliminary meeting when they come in, they will have made some adjustments. Once they start to engineer it, they’ll be certain, without doubt, some changes that have to be made that are mandated by the the more engineered engineered version.
So it might change slightly. So we have to, um, put on special permit conditions that in order to get a final approval on this definitive plan, uh, those conditions have to be met.
If those conditions have been changed too much and there has to be wording in the code to do that, then that special permit hearing can be reopened to get them to comply in some manner with, uh, what we’re asking for.
So again, there, the incentive for the developer here is, um, you can do your work in a lightly light fashion early on, get a special permit, and then then you spend the money on the fully engineered drawings and detailed plans, which is in this stage, uh, and then that goes for final approval. And if they meet all of the conditions, it’s an as of right. But through the special permit. So it’s the design procedure that is makes this different from what we, uh, we have in place now.
But again, it’s this is in kind of a nutshell, it’s a primer for what a conservation bylaw is. What are the contents in it? What are the procedures? What are some of the decisions that you have to make, such as density, amount of open space.
Then what are the bonuses in there that the developer has for performance? And uh, so forth. So the this is this to me was useful in coming up to be sure that this is almost a checklist that we as we go into each one of these stages, we have a list of, okay, this is what’s going to be determined.
And we’re telling the developer this is the information that’s required for content during each one of these stages. So we’re just going to lay it out in this manner. Again all this this is. This could be a handout to a developer. Not necessarily part of a the bylaw necessarily.
But uh, this to me is a it’s an organizational chart and it’s a chart that defines really what’s required at what stage and what are the benefits. And what are the, uh, challenges for each one of these? Um. So that that’s all I have there. And, uh.
Uh, we’ve been making a lot of progress on this, uh, going between the two of us going back and forth and making suggestions and conversations. But we’re at a point where where we’re going to come back again and and focus more on some of the, uh, the details of that. That really should be there. All board decisions. Not.
But we wanted to lay this out as clearly as we could and go over it. And then I’d like to do some road testing on this, just as an example. Of there’s there’s one issue, and I don’t know if I you said that this would be mandatory and I don’t know. And this is, uh, something that maybe town council could weigh in on.
I don’t know if you can make a conservation subdivision mandatory in view of the, uh, subdivision control law. I don’t know if if the zoning could usurp the subdivision control law. And my my thinking is that it could. It cannot. But what the intent here is to make development under this conservation subdivision.
Uh, more appealing than under a conventional subdivision. Whether that can be accomplished or not. Time will tell. Certainly, the open space and farmland preservation development by law didn’t work.
Uh, so the goal here is to to make the process as smooth and transparent as possible so that a developer knows from the start at the pre pre-application conference what is expected. And every step of the way is getting feedback so that its costs can be managed. They don’t spin their wheels, uh, paying for expensive engineering, only to be told at a later date that this is a terrible idea and it will never fly. It will never pass.
You will never get a special permit. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Um, so we want to avoid the consequence of that. And to make this a, uh, so that that a developer can see the wisdom and also, um, realize that they can make money going this route as opposed to a conventional
subdivision. And then the other thing, I think that this whole, uh, conservation subdivision, bylaw has to be predicated on engineered, um, wastewater treatment systems, uh, conventional subdivisions are not going to work. And unlikely.
And, and because of that, calculating the number of bedrooms is almost not worth the effort because it’s one bedroom for 10,000ft. And so you get what you get. So if I in this latest draft, after speaking with Emil, I basically added something to the effect that this is presupposes some type of a more technical septic system for the whole development, or spread it out in such a way, but you’re not
going to have individual septic systems for each unit in this to make this work. But having said that, you can use some of the open space for a well-designed system, so it isn’t as if it’s making it impossible. There is there.
There should be avenues available to, to take to take advantage of that. So, uh, you know, when you really dive into the weeds here, you realize how difficult it is to, to, to draft bylaws and make them, um, coherent and understandable and usable. And, and that’s what we want here. You know.
And, and we’ve, we’ve also taken to account, um, the estate houses and their potential reuse as well. How likely that is. We don’t know. But at least there is an avenue for the A one or 2 or 3, uh, estate owners that might look at this and see possibilities. Yeah. Marnie’s right about the.
Uh, of all the bylaws that I saw that were done by the MAPC, uh, there were about 20, 25 here in Massachusetts that they had case studies done. None of them. Um, allow conservation subdivisions unless there is town sewer or, you know, public system. So you’re right. That would be that would preclude, um, any kind of, um. Uh, development of this, of this nature, the mandatory part.
You’re right. Again, the, uh, it’s never been apparently tested in court, so I don’t I know Amherst has done it, but they’ve done it in conservation areas, in an aquifer area. But they have a conservation past. The conservation. So. But I guess it was never challenged, right? Yeah. So it’s a caveat. It’s never.
Been it’s never been tested. Never been tested. So, um. It’s interesting how the subdivision control law, uh, came into being. Towns actually had to adopt it. So Hamilton adopted it. And now, you know, we have our own subdivision rules and regulations.
So, um, I don’t know if there’s a mechanism where you can say, well, we don’t want it anymore. We’re rescinding our acceptance of the subdivision control law. I don’t know that that could happen, but, um, uh, anyhow, to be continued.
But I think that our goal here is to, to to get it in, in, in good shape and resolve the all the issues and have really, uh, a robust discussions with all members of the planning board because, we want this to be used.
And so how to make what was a good idea, I think at the time, with the open space and Farmland Development bylaw, make it user friendly so that, that, um, that there is an opportunity for some real creativity and development, that people where people would want to live. Especially people who are sick of taking care of. We have four acres of land with. Have a communal garden instead of a one huge garden. I don’t know. Okay. Any any comments on that? Uh. Should we keep going. Up so.
My only comment is, um, you talked about road testing, and, and I think that Meyer Lane subdivision is a good one, just because not only because we know it’s coming, but also because I think it’s a good kind of microcosm that a lot of the land left in Hamilton is not very good land.
It’s exactly very wet and it’s very. Yeah. I mean, either it’s hugely valuable. 300 acre. Yeah. You know, parcels that can have 300 houses on them or it’s little nooks and crannies here and there. We’re all steep slopes like. Five acres, three acres, you know, ten acres. Like Bridge Street. Yeah.
And the incentive would have to be enough on these small ones. At least you get one additional unit. Yeah. No one’s obviously going to do. It, but we’re trying to benefit by what other towns have done kind of the way the pluses and minuses, you know, in, in, especially in the bonuses, because many towns don’t give
bonuses to developers. But you have to to me urge them to do a little bit more, go through this design process because it’s about preserving the resources and features. That’s what we’re trying to get them to do. And don’t use it up by just slotting everything into private, into a private lots, you know, so.
Okay, so town center district, the design guidelines, um, has everyone had an opportunity to look at. Well, it’s really, um, the checklist that there were about I, I, we haven’t heard anything. It’s September on our grant application. Right. No. Not yet. Yeah. They’re deciding in September, right. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So we don’t maybe.
No, probably not at the next meeting. Um, but anyhow, Mike’s, um, uh, town center, district site, dimensional standards checklist. Um, and did anyone have any comments about this? Because this is certainly something that. Um. Would be a good tool for people. Um, uh, hoping to, uh, uh, do some development in the town center.
Yeah, I think it’s I think it’s pretty comprehensive. It’s well done as a checklist. Yeah, it’s well done. And I actually think that, um, if we do get any development, uh, under our new town center code, that this is something that should be part of a package of material that’s handed to them, as well as your flowchart,
which I still have. So I guess my only question. I agree, this is great, great tool. My only question is sort of from a legal or liability standpoint.
Should there be some sort of disclaimer at the beginning of this that says this is meant as a checklist and does not in any way supersede the bylaw? Oh, absolutely. That could go. On there. Yes. And it almost goes without saying. I mean, uh, to the extent that that the planning Board has any involvement in making a decision, we would have to follow the the language of the bylaw, not the checklist. But yes, that language.
I know that’s sort of housekeeping, but I just wanted to not lose sight. Of it. It’s an excellent point. I mean, but it is a checklist and it’s just advising people that these are the material. The challenge. When you submit.
When you duplicate information, if for it to contradict, that’s always the risk when you and this is in a sense, a wonderful duplication of information in a checklist form. We just need to make sure that I cross that t. Yes. Did you want to actually give that language to Mark? So I think Mark. I think I have the you could figure that out. But but it should be placed prominently at the top of the list. Sure.
Okay. So that’s great. And you know, this, this kind of document because it’s it’s not something that, um, has to be approved at town meeting. It can be changed. I mean, if we find in a year or two that it’s too cumbersome or it should be reorganized.
I’m not saying it should, but it’s something that can be amended at any time. Am I correct? Yes. It’s not like the storm, man. Uh, stormwater management regulations that actually required a public hearing. These these do not. So I think that’s great. Um, perhaps we. Can we make a motion to approve this checklist? Yes, I will, I’ll make a motion to approve the checklist.
Do I have a second? Second? Okay, so we are having a vote to approve the checklist with the, uh, the caveat, the language that, uh, Jonathan suggested to be added to it. So, um, we’ll have a roll call vote, because, um, Beth is, uh, on zoom. Maybe the word checklist should be changed. Well, I think you just.
You would call it, you know, your evaluation form some some something that doesn’t say, you know, doesn’t even intimate. No matter what it is, if it’s a duplication of the verbiage, it you run the risk of contradicting. So you just have to say this does not supersede the, the bylaw. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s it doesn’t preempt. You just have to say something legally that says that the, the overarching document is the original bylaw. Right. Um. It doesn’t matter what you call it. Okay. So roll call vote Jonathan. Poore Jonathan, Poore I. Bill Wheaton. I’m Bill and I. Am. Darcy Dale. Darcy Dale I. Beth Herr. I. Matt Hamel. Matt Hamel.
I am Marnie Crouch I thank you Mark that good job. Sure. Thank you. And next up off street parking. It’s a new one. But, um, it came up because a gentleman called and he is he runs a general contracting company out of Wenham and was looking at properties, and he saw one in
Hamilton, and it’s a two family dwelling. And he was thinking about making at least the first story within the town center district, maybe at least the first story. His office is for his company. Um, and to me, it sounded like an interesting kind of project. And I think probably we all received.
But one of the questions that came up was parking. And, um, this is our existing parking requirements and there’s nothing in our existing requirements that speaks to offices. Um, so the it’s the last row that kind of comes up and that if it’s not listed, then the Board of Appeals determines what the parking is.
And the planning board provides them advice. Um, and to me, that doesn’t seem very fair for the applicant because I don’t really know what the, the, the standards are. Um, and I could tell talking to this person on the phone that he didn’t like that uncertainty.
Um, so it just seemed to me like a simple thing we could do is to update this a to update that language, because in my view, I think this is a carryover for when the ZBA approved site plans. But that is obviously a planning board function now.
So I think this could just be something that the planning board would determine. But we would also, I think, want to list more uses that are common in Hamilton, like, like office uses and, um, things of that nature. So I took a very early first stab at that. Um. Uh. The the new text is in black and underlined.
So you, you cover. I don’t think it has to be a huge list, but just uses that you see in Hamilton, like offices and medical offices and places of worship, restaurants, things like that.
Um, and there is language in the and then updating that, that last one so that if it isn’t used that’s listed, that’s included in the parking requirements that the planning board could make that determination as part of site plan review.
Um, and there’s there is language in the section that I also proposed the idea of potentially having maximum parking so that, um, sometimes people propose a lot of parking, that a lot of time just sits empty. And it’s sort of an eyesore. So, you know, not sort of overdoing the parking if you can help it. So having some kind of maximum limit on parking, um, and I would note that this isn’t a change. It’s already in the requirements.
If, uh, you have a good case for why you don’t need to meet the parking requirements, the planning board can already grant a special permit to waive them. So I. You haven’t seen this? I did this last couple days. So, um, I know this is sort of new to you, but, uh, perhaps we could discuss in the next meeting if you have any early sort of thoughts.
Yeah, I’d like to. Yeah. At our next meeting. And so I just looked at, um, we have to make sure it’s not inconsistent with anything in the town center code. That’s, that’s really critical. And then I looked at 6.1 in our, in our, um, zoning bylaw.
And lo and behold, uh, and let me find it in six point. Don’t be here. 6.1.8 lights. So if we do adopt a, I’m thinking out loud here. If we were to adopt a at town meeting, how would the zoning bylaw have to be amended, if at all, to comply with the general bylaw? The is going to have a lot of very specific lighting standards,
and every single one of, well, not every single one, but a lot of our zoning sections have references to lighting the Browns Hill overlay district talked about lighting. Uh, everywhere. So should we just do a cut and paste? All lighting in the town shall comply with the general bylaw. Uh, wherever lighting appears. That’s what Chelmsford did say.
They they amended their zoning just to have, like, the same sentence appear many times in the zoning that just says lighting is governed under this section of the town bylaws. Right. Okay. Well, I just when I saw lighting, I thought, well, if we’re amending it. Here.
Then it’s somewhere else. But we might we might have a lot of technical amendments if that is passed. And the thing of it is, I suspect that the will pass.
So we should be ready, armed and ready with, um, the kind of amendments that we did several years ago where we we amended the Adu and a whole bunch of other inclusionary housing bylaw. We should be prepared to to recommend that wherever lighting appears in the zoning bylaw, it complies with the. Yes. So make a note of that. That’s something I might forget. I have another sort of peripheral comment, much like the peripheral comment there.
And that is the definition of off street parking. We had an application come before us where they were claiming off street parking, and it was straddling the property line. And so a simple definition of off street parking would preclude that kind of, you know, thing in an application.
You know, off street parking is not straddling the parking lots. Fully off street parking should be fully on the property. Simple as that. You know, Jonathan, could I ask you to go through the definitions? I’m not asking you to make new bylaws. I’ve been looking at the definitions for things like that. Yeah. Anytime you see something that’s just fuzzy. Yeah, and that’s.
Fuzzy, there’s things that are missing. There’s things that are fuzzy. Yeah. They’re very helpful if you. Were to. And that’s not the first time I’ve seen people do that. And it was surprising that it did come through that way. But it’s not the first time I’ve seen that.
So it’s it’s not such an anomaly that people have bend the rules with off street parking. Downtown areas have always had, you know, a lot of problems meeting parking requirements. Yeah. And but you just can’t you can’t present something as compliant when it’s not compliant. Ask for a special exception that and say it’s not compliant.
I know. No I agree with that 100%. Yeah. We’re I’m where I’m going with this. Is that it? You know, a lot of times sometimes we’ll uh partnership with private development and create public lots. Sure. So the parking for a particular store, it’s called shared parking doesn’t have to be on that lot.
It could be a walk of. Yeah, a couple hundred feet. And that could be encouraged in this. So that that would be a way to because there’s a lot of empty space in a downtown that could, you know, that could be parking areas if the owners were willing to share part of their property with the with the town to create.
Because I’m wondering if you were to go through the requirements on this list, uh, thinking about the very small properties that you see on Bay road, for example, you know, can you physically get in the parking lots? Oh, right. One for every 300ft. Yeah.
So because all buildings, future buildings in the town have to be two storeys high. So you’re going to have double floors. Yeah. Right now we have a lot of one storey buildings. I’m just wondering if, um. And I’m not I don’t have an answer for this, but. Unless otherwise waived. Some standing. Yeah. Well, yeah.
You know, it’s going to have to be because, you know, there isn’t. You wouldn’t. You really. Have enough space. You know, unless unless you start talking about shared parking? I really see. That’s the we have to get involved in. It’s not as bigger fish to fry. Look at restaurants. One space.. Just looking at that. That seems. Like I was looking at a restaurant. I was looking at restaurants to.
Look at 15. That’s everybody who comes to this restaurant drives single person in a car. I mean, you should do two, two seats. I think that was a misprint. I think it was supposed to be two seats. The other thing is, are general service establishments where stores. Retail. Retail, retail. Yeah. Where. The top. So.
Oh, I see this little. Ah. Okay. Okay. Retail. Got it. That’s a definition I don’t like general service establishment. Would. You know. But. There’s. Other business establishments has been. Yeah but. Didn’t put in retail.
General service establishment I think is in the definitions and what I mean if you ask anybody what that was they wouldn’t have a clue. Okay. So um, that’s another to be continued, but very interesting. Maybe it would be lawyers or accountants or something like that. Yeah. That might be personal services though. Oh right. But I mean, it really it doesn’t mean anything. Yeah, it should be retail or manufacturing, professional industrial whatever. Yeah. General service. It just. It’s it’s.
Just ambiguous. Okay. So finally discussion of recent and pending legislative amendments affecting zoning and land uses. There aren’t any new ones that we’ve talked about that the ones they’ve they passed, there is an economic development bill that’s pending that has some zoning things in it, but. It’s not it’s not a problem yet. Not a problem yet. Okay.
And the next meeting okay. So, uh, you are suggesting that September 1st is not a good September 1st doesn’t work. It’s the primary election. Yeah. And you want to move it to September 8th? Yes. If that works for everybody. Else. It doesn’t work for me.
I will be I will be away on September 8th. Um, that isn’t to say that my presence is so critical that a meeting cannot be held. Uh, however, uh, perhaps we could have our meeting on September 1st at 8:00 and just have an hour meeting with a hard stop. I leave it up to the, uh, board on what they would prefer.
We don’t have any applications pending or that have been filed. It’s been. It’s been pretty quiet. Yeah. So if we have no applications. You could merge the meetings. You could have 1st September meeting. Yeah. We could merge the meetings. So that would be, um. 2017 at the. Tuesday 22nd meeting. That would be the. Yeah. September I think 16th.
The 15th is Tuesday 15th. Sorry. So in September 15th, we’ll have, uh, we’ll have more certainty about the parking and. Uh. Maybe a little more input about the pod definitions, but it would be it would be manageable, I think, to combine meetings because I think if for our next meeting, it would
essentially be the same agenda item, except perhaps for the dark sky. Uh, bylaw. Yes. So the 22nd is out, right? Yeah. I’ve heard the merge meetings. There would just be one meeting on. The 15th. The 15th. Okay. Does anyone have a problem? Um, canceling the September 1st meeting. So.
So I will entertain a motion to cancel the September 1st planning board meeting. I move that, we move. Uh, I move that we cancel the September 1st planning board meeting. Do I have a second? Second. Uh, roll call vote. Uh, Jonathan. Poore Jonathan, Poore I. Bill Wheaton. Bill Wheaton, I. Am. And Will II.
Darcy Dale, Darcy Dale, I. Beth Herr. I am Marnie Crouch I. But since I’m chair, I have to warn you, since we canceled this meeting, we might have to double up if we get busy later in the year. So the second meeting was the 15th. It’s still the. 15th.
Still the 15th. So I had the 22nd down for some reason. Okay, I’m wrong. Wait. You’re right. The second meeting is the, uh, September 22nd. So we’re going to cancel that. One then. No, no. Uh, should we go forward with the 22nd? You mean instead of the 15th? Yeah.
No, on the on our schedule, our planning board meeting schedule. It’s the 22nd. I think I looked at it today, and I think it says the 15th. Let me just double check. It was updated at some point. Yeah. Oh, it was updated. Originally it was the 15th. Yeah. Okay. So it’s still on when if you go to like the planning board schedule, it’s still the 15th.
Yep. That’s right. Yeah. Oh okay. Is that the right date or are we doing the 22nd. The 15th I guess is the right date. And I’m looking okay. Great old calendar. We got it. Sorry I apologize. That’s fine. I just making sure. Okay. So it is the 15th. It is. The 15th. Okay, okay. Sounds good. Okay.
I think we’ve covered everything on our agenda. Then motion to adjourn. Second. Um, uh. Roll call. Vote. Jonathan. Poore Jonathan, Poore. I. Bill Wheaton. Bill Wheaton. Emil. And. Darcy Dale. Darcy Dale I. Beth Herr. Aye. Matt Hamel, aye. Marnie Crouch, aye.