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Home My Public Portal About20191230 - Zoning Advisory Committee - Meeting MinutesZONING ADVISORY COMMITTEE Monday, December 30, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall, 18 Main St, Hopkinton MA Room 215/216 MINUTES Members Present: Mary Larson-Marlowe, Chair; Ron Foisy; Ria McNamara; Ted Barker-Hook; Madhu Chandrasekar; Carol DeVeuve Members Absent: John Coutinho; Sundar Sivaraman; Elyse Mihajloski Also Present: John Gelcich, Principal Planner Ms. Larson-Marlowe called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. 1.Accessory Family Dwelling Unit - keeping changes small - specific wording of the bylaw. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said that Ms. DeVeuve drafted changes to the bylaws and that the focus was to keep the changes relatively small and minor, as well as avoiding conflicts in bylaws. Ms. DeVeuve said the changes to Section 210-126 to include (1) removing”family” from the title and Item B; (2) Delete item C, Use Limitations, which specifies that it must be a family member; (3) Change Item E to remove the requirement for an interior door; (4) Questioned Item G to possibly make the SF larger than 800 sf; (5) Delete Item K; (6) Item L should have added “or a care service provider.” The Committee discussed these proposed changes. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said it is important to note that these changes do not modify the intent of the section. Mr. Barker-Hook said he believes the proposed changes, by nature, are changing the intent of the bylaw, since Item B says “family living unit.” Ms. Larson-Marlowe said it is important to note that the changes would maintain the single-family character of the town. Ms. Chandrasekar arrived at this time. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said the intent is so that neighbors wouldn’t notice the ADU. Ms. DeVeuve said the intent should be to provide housing for people to live in Hopkinton from birth to death. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said that this doesn’t address allowing a separate structure on the lot, but ZBA addresses this elsewhere in the bylaw. Ms. DeVeuve said she believed this section to only address existing structures on-site and not to address new, separate structures on-site. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said this section has been used to allow separate structures on-site via this ADU section. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said striking Item C would remove owner-occupied provision. Ms. DeVeuve suggested and Ms. Larson-Marlowe agreed that the second sentence of Item C be struck, keeping the first and third sentence, but removing “family” from the first sentence. Ms. Larson-Marlowe reiterated that the third sentence of Item E be struck. Mr. Barker-Hook said he doesn’t think he will be in favor of this proposal. He believes he lives in a neighborhood where this revision would impact the houses in his neighborhood, changing the character of the homes. Mr. Barker-Hook said he thinks this is being brought forward because ZBA has asked in the past to allow for a zoning change since they grant these approvals often. Ms. DeVeuve asked Mr. Gelcich to clarify about allowing a separate structure. Mr. Gelcich clarified that Item B appears to not provide for that. Mr. Barker-Hook said he would support maintaining the requirement to enclose stairways. Ms. Larson-Marlowe agreed that exterior stairs make it look like a separate unit. Ms. McNamara said unless the stairway cannot be seen from the street. Mr. Barker-Hook said it may be an issue if the neighbors can see the stairs. Ms. DeVeuve said she has no problem leaving the stairway requirement in the bylaws. Ms. Larson-Marlowe reiterated that the proposed change to Item E is to strike the sentence with the interior doorway. Ms. Larson-Marlowe disagreed with striking Item G since she doesn’t believe Town Meeting would approve this change. Mr. Barker-Hook agreed with Ms. Larson-Marlowe. Ms. DeVeuve repeated that Item K should be struck, but doesn’t feel very strongly about it. Ms. Larson-Marlowe, Mr. Barker-Hook, and Ms. McNamara said they didn’t think this item should be touched. Ms. DeVeuve suggested striking the two-year provision sentence. Ms. McNamara said this item is the only way to enforce the three-person maximum. Ms. McNamara said she thinks Town Meeting will question why this item is being removed. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said she doesn’t think Town Meeting will approve this change. Ms. DeVeuve said it is onerous for the Director of Municipal Inspections to be inspecting ADUs every two years on older residents. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said the change of occupancy is likely more directed to a change from owner-occupancy to something else or a change in ownership. Ms. DeVeuve asked why it needs to be a two-year review process. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said likely only because it has been in place since 1993. Mr. Barker-Hook said he believes if Town Meeting believes this eliminates control they will not accept it. Ms. DeVeuve disagreed. Ms. DeVeuve said she will introduce an amendment at Town Meeting to strike the clause if this proposal is introduced without striking Item K. The Committee generally discussed the intent of the section. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said the changes to Item L would be striking “family” from the first sentence, strike the rest of the sentence starting with “to accommodate…” or modify. Ms. DeVeuve said she does not proposed to strike the sentence but rather add “or a care service provider.” Mr. Barker-Hook said he would be in favor of this modification. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said to strike “or a member of the additional family is 60 years of age or older.” Mr. Barker-Hook suggested changing “additional family” to “additional occupant(s).” Ms. Larson-Marlowe said this amended sentence should read: Accessory dwelling unit shall mean a dwelling unit contained within or being an extension of a single-family structure to accommodate an additional occupant(s) only if a care service provider or a member of the additional occupant(s) are related by blood, marriage, or adoption to the owner of the premises. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said this will be tabled and rewritten to be voted on at the next meeting. The Committee generally discussed whether the over 60 person, as written, had to be a family member. 2.Short Term Rentals - preliminary discussion Ms. Larson-Marlowe said if this is to be moved forward, there should be an addition to the ADU section, Item M, to not allow short term rentals in ADUs. However, these would be two separate warrant articles. Ms. Larson-Marlowe asked if the Committee wanted to discuss, the general consensus was not to address at this meeting. Ms. DeVeuve said this addition may not be necessary since the rest of the section would preclude this use. 3.Minor change to non-conforming structure (allow Zoning enforcement officer to issue permit without ZBA in certain circumstances) - review possible wording. Ms. Larson-Marlowe gave overview of the section to change, Section 210-128 A(2) and C. Ms. Larson-Marlowe reviewed that abutters would need to be notified, likely direct abutters and abutters to abutters. Mr. Gelcich asked how the approval from the abutters would be verified that they are “approving” the submitted plans. The Committee generally discussed this issue. Ms. DeVeuve presented specific wording to allow for waiver of application requirements. The Committee and Mr. Gelcich generally discussed this and Ms. Larson-Marlowe said she would take this under consideration for further exploration. 4.Acceptance of LFN Rd. - what, if any, zoning needs to be modified Ms. Larson-Marlowe said that a zoning change is unnecessary for this item. 5.Update on Business Survival Plan for Downtown Corridor (Ron) Mr. Foisy gathered five key items from the Chamber of Commerce that he believes may be related to a zoning perspective: 1.Signage - create a variance to the 30-day limit for signage. May need to address size and timing of temporary signs. 2.Parking - anything Town can do through zoning to create temporary parking areas. Mr. Foisy specifically mentioned CVS and Hopkinton Drug. 3.Traffic - consideration of rerouting of traffic and changing one-way streets to temporary two-way streets. 4.Tax subsidies for downtown business owners. 5.Timing issue - timing construction for businesses such as Hop-yo to not coincide with their busy season. Ms. Larson-Marlowe suggested getting input from Design Review Board on temporary signage. Ms. McNamara said DRB doesn’t review temporary signage and really shouldn’t have that jurisdiction for this project due to the changing nature. She suggested getting an ombudsman for this project, which is the jurisdiction of the Town Manager/Select Board. Ms. McNamara said tax subsidies are not a zoning issue but rather a Select Board issue. She said traffic rerouting will likely be an issue with the Fire Department. Ms. McNamara mentioned the 25-35 Main Street development. Mr. Gelcich gave a status update. No application has been filed but preliminary meetings have been held recently. Mr. Barker-Hook suggested the Chamber address business parking with Hopkinton Drug and CVS. Mr. Foisy said the sign issued is the item most germane to the Committee. Ms. DeVeuve asked Mr. Foisy if the Chamber had gotten any input from business owners as to what signage they would like to have. The Committee generally discussed how to implement temporary zoning changes and whether they can have expiration dates. Mr. Gelcich to ask Town Counsel if zoning can have a “self-destruct” clause in relation to temporary signage. Ms. Larson-Marlowe said the next meeting is January 6, 2020. The meeting after that is January 23, 2020. 6.Solar Overlay Mr. Gelcich gave an overview of what was discussed with Town Counsel. Mr. Barker-Hook discussed that he went before the Planning Board and presented the overlay idea. Mr. Gelcich said that Town Counsel has advised that providing several parcels as options is appropriate, however, consideration needs to be made for Hopkinton’s Green Communities status. Mr. Gelcich recommended starting an overlay with the parcels that contain existing solar developments. Mr. Barker-Hook said he will move this forward. 7.Minutes of December 2, 2019 No members mentioned issues. Mr. Foisy moved to approve, Ms. McNamara seconded, Committee voted (5-0-1) to approve as written, Mr. Barker-Hook abstained. Ms. DeVeuve moved to adjourn, Mr. Foisy seconded, Committee voted to adjourn (6-0-0) at 8:53 PM. Approved: January 6, 2020 Documents:None