City Council - Ordinance Committee

Planning Board & City Council Ordinance Joint Public Hearing Meeting Minutes: March 8, 2022 Call to Order: 6:02pm by Jesse Belcher Timme A motion was made by Councilor Peake and seconded by Councilor Rothschild; it was unanimously voted to re-open the public hearing continued from February 25, 2022. Online via Zoom Planning Board Members Present: Jesse Belcher Timme (Chair), Christopher Cockshaw, Harry Schuman, Daniel Hartman, James Zarvis and Ken Iavecchia Ordinance Committee Members Present: Salem Derby (Chair), Tom Peake, Lindsey Rothschild City Planning Office: Jeff Bagg, City Planner Also in Attendance: Jessica Allan, Zoe Ingram, Donna Cuipylo, Donald Torrey, Ryan F. and Danielle Martineau Public Speak Time: No members of the public present to speak. Continuing Business: Call to Order Public Speak NOTE: This is a Joint Hearing of the Planning Board and City Council Ordinance Subcommittee Public Hearings (Continued from December 14, 2021 and January 25, 2022) 6:00 p.m.- To amend existing Zoning Ordinance Table 5-1, Section 7.4 Smart Growth Overlay District including parking and design standards, and Section 8.6 Planned Unit for Residential Development for Affordable Housing by Plan Approval (PA) rather than Special Permit (SPB) in the R-5, R-10, R-15, and to allow it by Plan Approval (PA) in the DB, HB, NB, and MI districts, and, to amend the official Zoning Map by extending the Downtown Mixed Use Smart Growth Overlay over 4 Park Street (parcel 52-82), and to create a new Highway Business Mixed Use Smart Growth Overlay over 21 parcels (128-113, 128-114, 128-112, 128-111, 128-110, 128-107.1, 128-109, 128-108, 128-107, 128-105, 128-96, 128-95, 128-94, 128-93.1, 128-92, 128-91, 128-90, 128-89, 128-45, 128-44, 128-43)  ● Jeff Bagg, City Planner: ○ The only new information is a letter from DHCD dated February 1, 2022 indicating they've deemed the application complete. Per the regulations, this enables them to review the actual zoning amendment text. There is no feedback yet. This was anticipated since they have 60 days to review the submission once it was deemed complete. ○ Next step - take DHCD comments when they come in to this group and post on the website ○ Incorporate comments into the draft ○ Next submission–up to a 60 day review period ● Donald Torrey: The City is short on industrial zones; would like to see more industrial going in there as well. Will there be a traffic study before allowing 300 apartments? Not a good site for dense housing. ● James Zarvis: Any housing developments would need to come before the planning board and then further questions can be asked; Nothing wrong with increasing our tax base. ● Donald Torrey: Tax base of businesses and industry makes more sense. Residences cause more tax burden by needing to educate more kids. ● Councilor Derby: 40R is an opt in, encourages mix-use, location walkable to services ● Danielle Martineau, 89 Northampton Street: Full support of this change, looking forward to their neighbors developing something; majority of residences in R10 and R15 do not support industry. Mix use space would be great. ● Danny Hartman: Has a Masters Degree in traffic engineering; a traffic study is done after you know what is going in there. Demand of traffic differs; residential 2-3 commutes per day, businesses are a steady stream, highly variable; dynamic piece of our town ● Jeff Bagg: 40R is optional. Maintain the highway business district; can still do businesses, robust public discussions showed the industrial uses are not favorable in this area; re- school enrollment- good opportunity to gather data, enrollment has been dropping ● Councilor Peake: He introduced this proposal. At work, he runs statistical models to project school enrollment - Easthampton is showing diminishing enrollment; Districts do not want rapidly declining enrollment; demographically on the downslope ● Jessica Allan: Chapter 40S provides payments for school children who move into 40R A motion was made by James Zarvis and seconded by Daniel Hartman; it was unanimously voted that this meeting be continued to March 29, 2022 at 6pm. A motion was made by Councilor Rothschild and seconded by Councilor Peake; it was unanimously voted that this meeting be continued to March 29, 2022 at 6pm. Hearing Continued: March 29, 2022 at 6pm A motion was made by James Zarvis and seconded by Christopher Cockshaw; it was unanimously voted to adjourn. A motion was made by Councilor Derby and seconded by Councilor Peake; it was unanimously voted to adjourn. Respectfully Submitted, Councilor Lindsey Rothschild Clerk to the Ordinance Committee