Zoning Recodification Working Group - Dec 19th, 2017

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Approval of Prior Meeting Minutes. The group discusses and approves minutes from the December 6th meeting.

Hearing Draft and Supporting Materials. The hearing draft will not change between now and the ARB hearings in January. DPCD staff will start a working draft (with change tracking) to capture pending changes.

We reviewed the current Guide to the Arlington Zoning Bylaw Recodification.

Other supporting materials we should prepare for the ARB hearing: a 1--2 page short summary of the recodification and a document outlining changes for legal compliance. We prepared a short summary for the first public meeting in July; that can be updated, and used as the basis for a new short summary.

ACMi will record the ARB hearing on Jan 8th, since it is a regularly-scheduled meeting. We should make ACMi aware of the continuation dates, so they can be recorded as well.

The redline group plans to work on their project in advance of the ARB meeting. The redline will not be ready in time for the ARB meeting, but we would like to have it in time for town meeting. That means starting early. Members of the group will coordinate work among themselves.

Illustrations. Laura spoke with Town Counsel regarding the diagrams and illustrations. These graphics are illustrative, and not part of the zoning bylaw. As illustrative material, they won't be voted on by town meeting, and can be changed without town meeting approval. Town Counsel recommends that each diagram contain "For illustrative purposes only" language, as in the current ZBL.

We had a lot of discussion about the Height Buffer Area illustration. It's not a bad example, but there are many nuances which aren't conveyed. Mike Byrne notes that Height buffer area has only come up in two projects, and those were subject to the EDR process. The group agrees to omit the Height Buffer Area illustration.

Several members suggest changes and corrections to ZRWG-produced illustrations. Steve will make these changes. Steve will also send a list of changes for RKG's illustrations, for consistency. We'd like the fonts to match, titles to appear in similar places, and we'd prefer black and white illustrations to color (i.e., the images need to hold up when printed in black and white).

We decide to omit the illustrations for inner and outer courts. The illustrations focus on the dimensional requirements for courts, and Mike Byrne says the issue almost never comes up -- there's not a lot of new apartment wing construction in Arlington.

Neighborhood Meetings. We discuss and edit a letter to town meeting members, to make them aware of public meetings in January and February.

We discuss possible agendas for the neighborhood meetings, and the things we'd like to present. A number of TMM survey respondents were aware of the recodification effort, but hadn't been following the details. Part of the presentation should be oriented towards them: why we undertook this effort, a timeline of what's happened during the last year, and how public participation has shaped the process. We may also walk through a renovation project, using the current and proposed versions of the bylaw. We should also explain the 1975 recodification, and how it differs from the current recodification effort.