January 14, 2026 – Housing Partnership – Video & Transcript
January 14, 2026 - Housing Partnership
Hello. Thanks for moving me to a panelist. You're welcome. Good evening. Hi, Mary. Is that you,
Bobby? That's me, Robbie. Robbie. Sorry. Hi. How are you tonight? How are you doing? I'm here.
Hi, Jim. Hi, Mary. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. And you? You look like you're doing fine.
Yeah, I'm okay. I'm home. I'm eating my dinner as I'm watching. I hope you don't mind.
I think you should share with us. Happy to. This is toast with blue cheese and
free cheese and have a little tomato soup that Lindsay made. It's good for a cold night when
everybody's sick. And Beth and I are both a little under the weather. And so is Lindsay and her two
kids. Oh, that's too bad. Well, thank you. Thank goodness. Lindsay's a nurse practitioner. So
that helps. Yes. And I'm so sorry that Janelle will not be with us tonight because of her mom
passing. That's very sad. 96 years old. She, I hope she had a good run. That's a, that's a long,
long life. Well, it sounds like it's a good run. Yeah. I wasn't even sure that, um, she was still
living. Um, so I hadn't heard. I didn't know that either. I knew her dad had passed away a few years
ago. Yeah, I did too. Hi, Jackie. Hello. Jackie is back from spending a couple of weeks in Puerto
Rico. Isn't, is that right? Fabulous. Actually, I went this time to Dominican Republic. Oh, hence why
the internet was, uh, shaky. Well, I'm planning to take my first trip to Puerto Rico in a couple of
weeks. Oh, okay. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Are you going to the Capitol? No. I mean,
the plane flies in and out of there, but we decided that that would be a totally separate trip, which we
might do. Okay. I'm sure it's fascinating. So we're going to start in the Southwest corner. Okay. And
then we're going to move up to Lucio and the Rainforest. Okay. Yeah. The Rainforest is, uh, you
bring your hiking boots there. I'm planning to. Always going down is easy. Coming back up is, uh,
treacherous. Okay. Well, that's fine. I, I've flown many times. I hope not to, but that happens.
Hello, Rachel. Hi, Gene. Hi, Kathy. Hi, Jim. Where are you going, Jim, that you're, uh, Puerto Rico.
All right. For the first time. Okay. For about five days. Yeah. I'm looking forward to, I'm, I'm a skier,
but I'm looking forward to a change in the weather. Where are you going? Um, we're starting in the
Southwest corner and then moving up to Lucio and the Rainforest. Got it. Okay. I've been there
quite a few times. Okay. And, uh, it's very, Lucio is very pretty and the Rainforest. Lovely. All
good. It should be a fun time. Thank you. Don't miss the old city. It's, it's also fun.
Another trip. I'm, this will not be my last. I'm, I'm thinking this is worth a number of trips. I'm
hoping we can all make Puerto Rico into a state and expand the blue, uh, boning block along with DC.
Well, this is a political reconnaissance.
I'll tell you, the Puerto Ricans are smart people and they've kept arm's length for a reason.
Well, you're right. They're doing just fine without getting too close to the rest of us.
But, but I, I like Jim's point about, uh, we could use a couple of more.
Oh yeah. But, um, anyway. You're probably right, Jean, you, you know a lot more about
voting and convincing people than I do, but. Well, I just knew, I just knew a Puerto Rican person
very well. And she was quite forthcoming with her description of life there. Her dad was an IBM
executive, uh, basically in charge of sales and operations in Puerto Rico. So she was, uh, born and
raised there. And then, you know, came to the mainland for her college education, graduate school.
And, um, you know, she, she said the culture leans very Spanish. Oh yeah. And, uh, they like
their autonomy. They don't see all that much advantage to being more closely tied to the U S
obviously they're very divided and have a big internal debate about that. But I imagine they're
all feeling quite smug at the moment. I don't blame them. I don't blame them. You know, the next time
there's a hurricane and the president comes bringing paper towels or toilet paper, they won't feel any
more disposed to it. My daughter, my daughter-in-law is Puerto Rican. So I have a special kinship to
the island in, in general. In any case, um, Mary, hello. Are we ready to rock and roll?
Well, I think we have a quorum, so we'll get the meeting started. Will somebody take the minutes?
Um, I, I, I'm sure I haven't done it in a really long time. So thank you, Rachel.
Yes. Thank you. And Rachel, it's nice to see you looking well.
Um, well, thank you, Jean. I am doing okay. I have these puffy cheeks from my steroid
that I still have to take. They're kind of my chipmunk cheeks, but, uh, given
Well, they're very becoming. Well, they are.
Look good. It's, um, it is what it is. As we say, Jean, I'm here. And that's the, uh, that's the
amazing thing that I'm here. Welcome back. I'm very fortunate to have you.
Well, I am fortunate as well. Thank you, Mary.
So we'll call the meeting to order pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025. This meeting
will be conducted, um, by a remote access in accordance with applicable law. Um, no in-person
attendance by members of, uh, of the public will be permitted. This meeting has remote
access. One may watch, um, by going to the town website to the public, um, body
meeting information. Um, so, um, assuming there are, uh, there's no public comment. So, uh, the
first thing will be to approve the minutes of November 19th. Uh, Jim sent out some, um,
um, uh, corrections and additions. Um, are there any others? Okay. I thought they were
great additions. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? So moved by Jim. And a
and a second, the second Kathy. All right. Um, uh, roll Paul vote. Jim. Yes. Rachel. Abstain. Uh,
Jean. Yes. Uh, Kathy. Yes. Uh, Jackie. Yes. And Mary. Yes. Oh, thank you. Um, so updates, Jean. Okay. The, uh,
the, uh, 212 constituent road advisory committee. Um, I think things are going really well. The
committee is working hard, uh, bless Tom Fay. He's putting a tremendous effort into bringing
many different relevant groups to the committee for us to learn from them. So we, you know, we have
policy makers, we have, uh, experts in financing such developments. We have, uh, builders, both
builders who, for whom, uh, this kind of housing is just part of their portfolio. And then other
builders who pretty much specialize in this kind of housing. Uh, we've had, um, a variety of private
citizens. Some of them have preferred to meet away from the cameras, like at Mel's coffee shop or to,
um, submit written testimony rather than appear in a public meeting. Um, but I, I feel like we're
getting a lot of, uh, participation very early in the process. We had many of the neighbors come and
express their concerns about what would this mean for their neighborhood. Um, but I really feel like
the, the committee is making an awfully good effort. Um, so what are our main struggling points? Um,
one was just this business of, did we want to in any way express preference for any subpopulation
of disabled people? Um, the data we've been given, you know, suggests there are something like 70,000
under housed disabled people in the Commonwealth, people who are on waiting lists and have otherwise
expressed ways of trying to get better adapted housing or simply just more affordable housing.
Um, so we, we spent a lot of time wrestling with that and kind of came to the conclusion that it was going
to be, um, pretty tough because there are so many different kinds of people, all of whom needed housing
assistance. Um, so there didn't seem to be any good way of setting priorities or narrowing it down.
Um, so one possible way of breaking out a subgroup is to build specifically to DDS specifications.
Um, DDS has a triage process. Now I'm probably telling you people things you already know because
you all know more about housing than I do. So forgive me. Um, you know, much, much of this is new to me and I
kind of have to report that way. So, um, DDS, uh, does a triage process and actually houses
far fewer people than, um, I think would be desirable, frankly, given the degree of disability that some
people who are turned away have. Um, but they take the most acute cases and they, they require very,
the, the people living in DDS housing, the, the current model that DDS has been working with
is like a five bedroom in a ranch house style building is kind of ideally what they'd like to have.
Um, I've been doing a lot of reading and I sort of feel that that model is likely to not be sustainable
because the fixed costs of operating a facility like that was so few people are extremely high.
Um, and that coupled with the fact that they usually provide 24 seven care and they all report great
difficulty getting the people they want to work for them. So, um, while that is a group that can be
kind of identified as a discrete group that you could build a specific kind of facility for, um,
I'm a, I, I'm an outlier on this committee. I'll just fess up to this. Um, most people on the committee
are pretty comfortable with building for DDS housing. I'm not persuaded. Um, I just look at the,
what's going on in the world around us. And usually, uh, in situations like this, economic and political,
uh, high cost, uh, care, uh, is most vulnerable to being cut. And what I worry about is the facilities
built to that model would be uneconomic to operate in the long term. Um, and so they, they are
obviously DDS is obviously, um, experimenting with other models. So we've heard about examples where,
for example, they embed a DDS family group in an apartment building where there's a variety of other
people living in the building. Um, sometimes there's a few market rate units. Um, usually there's a lot of
affordable units. Often there are people who are disabled, but, um, are not as afflicted and have more
ability for autonomy and don't need 24 seven care. And then, uh, embedded within this building, they create
a wing or a neighborhood that is a DDS operated home. Um, and I think part of this is DDS experimenting
with ways of getting its fixed costs down, um, to make, uh, their, their, uh, communities more sustainable.
Um, so enough on that, I can go on at length, but so we've looked at, um, that whole, the whole question
of how do we decide what populations to help. Um, and I think what we're moving toward is, um,
um, writing a work, you know, recommending to the selectmen who will prepare the request for proposals
that they really, um, try to get, um, the, the vendors to form groups of a builder, uh, a management
services care company and a financing entity and, you know, submit, um, uh, a team proposal where they
have come to a conclusion about, uh, models that they think are successful that are in their organization's
area of expertise. So we've moved more toward thinking about having
these very experienced organizations. Many of them tell us what they do really well and who they know
how to care for and, um, how they know to set up the financing so that the property will endure for a
long period of time in good financial health. Um, I'm going to stop right here because I can really go
on a long time and I'm not sure I'm addressing the parts of this matter that you want to hear about.
Anybody want to ask me some questions? Well, you wrote a report or you're writing a draft of the report. Uh-huh. Um, would you speak right into your microphone, Mary? Because you fade in and out for me. Okay. Okay. Uh, you were, um, uh, doing the first draft of the report. Right. Um, can you tell us a little more about that process so we know what to expect? I mean, basically we're trying to summarize for the select board all the things we've learned. Um, and you know, emphasizing all the usual things you, I think I sent you a copy. If you saw all my list of appendices, you can see I'm attempting to drown the select board and data. Um, but, um, so we're trying to, one of the things we're talking about is how do you right size the facility? If somebody wants to build a DDS five bedroom home, they need generously a quarter of an acre, maybe even smaller. And what we've got is four acres. Um, that four acres, uh, according to the town planner can be subdivided. So the town, and, and they wrote the article at town meeting in such a way that if they choose, they can choose to develop just one portion of the area, which is zoned R 60. Um, and they can either retain for future use the remaining plot, or they can, uh, sell it at market rate. Um, you know, there's arguments for going in every direction. Um, the neighbor's stated preference is to basically put two five bedroom ranch style houses on those lots, one in each lot, and have that be the capacity of the site. Um, I'm struggling with that myself because four acres is a rare and extraordinary opportunity. I didn't know that when I joined this committee, but I know it now. And these, all these organizations that build this kind of housing struggle to find sites. Uh, most of it is affordability in terms of getting a piece of land that makes your spreadsheets work. Um, lot of it is citing proximity to services. Um, a lot of times what they end up doing is buying older houses, like old Victorian houses that are from an era where the rooms were big and boxy and there was plenty of space and they retrofit them. The problem is that with the, you know, miracles of modern medicine and stuff, um, disabled people are living extraordinarily long lives and they are becoming seniors and they can't go up the stairs to the bedrooms anymore. So they're finding while it, that housing acquisition model worked well in the past, as they can see, it's not working well now. Um, so my struggle is, um, you know, if it's possible to get community acceptance of doing a facility that would house more people in a variety of mixes. Um, I'm putting in the report examples of facilities that have, uh, different size groupings. A lot of the ones that I've been attracted to have between 30 and 40 residents. Uh, part of the reason for the attraction is that in reading sort of the planning of various organizations who talk about how they make their company work, a lot of them find the sweet spot for the financing of their projects in that number of units. Um, but you know, it certainly would be, we've seen lots of models where they do, um, DDS housing, but they're putting three buildings on the lot or four buildings on the lot and have, have garnered, uh, DDS support, uh, by calling them, um, planned, planned living communities. They, you know, they give them a different kind of name that doesn't trigger any of the regulations. Uh, so they seem to get acceptance. Um, so there's some in, in those sizing models, which bump up to around 20 people. Um, but I think for the selectmen that, you know, the most important struggle is going to be finding really good vendors who will put together a financially viable project so that, um, some of these projects do fail. Um, and it's really hard to get any statistics. I looked really hard for statistics and nobody publishes financial failures of these kinds of homes for disabled people that I could find. I may just not know which professional journals to look in. I was able to find data for nursing homes, which have a very high rate of financial failure. Um, and I did, I really didn't know if those were a good proxy or not. Um, but then the, the, the main thing I think the selectmen is going to do after finding good vendors is just to how to get neighborhood acceptance and whether or not there's any possibility of, uh, housing more people on what is a very large site, um, without, you know, having lawsuits basically from people who don't, uh, support building that kind of home on those kinds of residential lots. So, uh, Jean is doing the initial draft. Uh, she is going on vacation and, uh, probably Bill Whitney is taking over the draft. Um, and, uh, like Jean, I'm concerned with putting a small number of people on this four acre parcel. I have written, uh, notes to both Tom and Bill Whitney pointing out that, uh, uh, getting land is even harder than getting the money, uh, to build the projects and that this is an opportunity and we should be, um, trying to make, um, the best possible use of this parcel of land. Um, Jean had mentioned before that she'd like people to show up at, uh, these meetings and they are meeting frequently. Um, but I'm wondering if we should, um, as a committee, uh, draft a letter, uh, for the committee, um, with, you know, our, our idea of how best to use this land. Uh, Rachel served on the deadly pond, uh, land and we lost the entire plot. Uh, and I pointed out that even the federal government charges, uh, market rates for land for affordable housing because the 1936 law or whenever it was great, Rachel knows better than I does not include affordable housing. We could build a jail there and we'd get the land free, but we don't get the land, uh, uh, at no cost, um, for affordable housing. So land is really vital. And so I'm wondering, uh, if the committee is interested in, uh, weighing in, uh, with the 212 committee. I think that's a great idea. I, I, uh, I think we, as a group can, without suggesting any particular alternative should weigh in and say two, two buildings with five occupants each, it does not seem like the best use of the land. And, and further, we might say along with Jean's thoughts that in the long run, this might not be the best or most sustainable model. And we'd like the committee to consider more uses on the land, whether it's a, uh, a teaching facility as we were talking about, or an arts facility or mixed housing with, uh, one wing for the disabled or most disabled and, and other residents in the facility who are not disabled. Um, whatever. I mean, I, I think we, we have a lot of creative minds and I think it's important to let them know that we've been part of this process and don't want to get left out. I think I had a little trouble hearing you, Mary, I think you said something about Dudley Pond. And I'm assuming that was an earlier one, but I, I remember the Oxbow issue where we wanted to buy the property and then a developer came in and we didn't even, we couldn't even get a single affordable unit out of that. I mean, it's, it's nuts. That's not true. The town ended up buying 1.75 acres of land at market grade. I don't remember what, what, I think, I think Jim was speaking to lunch away, not Oxbow. That's what I'm talking about. I'm sorry. I got the, I got the name wrong and, and you know, it's really unfortunate. This is a loss of a fabulous opportunity that the town had and I don't think we want to leave it up to a developer or somebody else. And I, even though I certainly agree that we don't want to have a project which the neighbors hate because that will not be helpful. Um, we have other projects like the St. Anne's project where there are neighbors who object to it, but the thinking is that over time they'll realize that it's really a benefit to them. So I don't think we have to cave in to initial neighbors' objections, but should be looking to be a little more aggressive or creative or whatever. So can I just say something, Jean? First thing, thanks. Thanks so much, Jean, for all that hard work. You've clearly, uh, done a ton of work here. And, uh, one thing that you are not correct about, which is that the committee knows more about this than you do. I think it's absolutely true that you know more about this. In fact, I, I think it's fair to say that the committee really hasn't focused on this particular sub-issue of housing problems. Uh, historically, we've been doing that much more in the last couple of years, as the opportunities that we are familiar with have arisen. But in general, this hasn't been a focus of the committee. And we're, we're aware of the enormous need. So right now, I would like to just say you are the expert on this much more than any of the rest of us. Um, I, I would also like to say, I, I like the idea of our writing a letter and, um, it would make sense, I think, for you to try to put down your five or six pithy points about what the housing partnership should be advocating or advocating against. I really appreciate your comments about it being very hard to believe that having a five-unit, uh, facility can be cost-effective when you need 24-7 care for many, uh, essentially for these kinds of, uh, group homes. Yeah. So it's, um, it's really, uh, a conundrum. It's a very, very, this may be ideal for the residents. A five-unit group home may be the perfect size, but, uh, it, it's probably not a viable model, uh, for us to consider. Anyway, um, that was just my two cents. I, Mary, in the interest of time, I, I don't remember how much time you allotted to this, but, you know, uh, Kathy and I are eager to make sure we have that conversation about affordable ADUs. Right. That is, um, you know, that meeting with Dana is coming up in a few weeks. So I just wanted to be mindful of the time, um, and make sure that we don't shortchange that conversation. Well, that's, uh, you're right. Um, I think your suggestion, uh, of, uh, Jean to write down the, the major points that we ought to hit, uh, is a good one. The report is final on February 15th. Is that correct? Yeah, it has to be submitted by then. So I will have, uh, another, the next draft will be done for the 27th of this month. And I would like to have, um, your letter in, um, with that draft. Um, so I, I think it's important that all the committees in town that whose work bears on this, uh, somehow participate, uh, I contacted, um, Julie Secord in the last couple of days, and I know one of the things they do in their office is talk to seniors, not only about their own care, um, if they're disabled, but also a lot of aging seniors have disabled younger family members that they talked to the, um, staff and the COA about, you know, here I am doing my estate planning and I have this niece or great niece who has no resources and, you know, what is the family going to be able to do? So I'm, I'm hoping to get her to appear before the committee. Um, but in any case, I'm glad to write up a first draft of a letter, uh, with points that I think bear on the, uh, our, our guiding document, which whose name is escaping me this minute, the housing production plan. Okay. What I'll do is I actually read it recently. I will go through and pick out the things because that's the purview of this particular committee is, and try to tap, tie objectives of that plan to opportunities on the site. Can I ask a question before we move on? Um, I'll make a point. I guess my is, is the, I went through what you had provided us with the 34 pages, but is the notion here that the committee is going to make a recommendation to the select board as to what the, not the process, but in fact, what the plan will be for the number of units for? Uh, no, what the, what the committee will do is, um, provide information that we hope will shape the request for proposals. And at this point, we don't plan to limit that recommendation by number of units or I thought you said, well, I'm talking about the preferences of the committee. And at this point, they have, that's what we're talking about, but I don't know. That's where we'll end up in a few weeks. I can only tell you what's happened. I guess my, yeah, my only concern, and I like the idea of you're giving us your, the five points, because I think that'll be very helpful for us to better understand. I think we also have to remember what the Olmstead Act and the Olmstead case was about, though. That's one of my concerns is that this is about people, people with disabilities being integrated effectively into our community. And I kind of wonder how effectively they're integrated if they're in a 30 person facility. Um, I, I just want to, I think we have to, I don't know, I mean, I haven't been to your meeting, so I don't know how much discussion there's been about that, but I do think that that is one of the issues about people with disabilities have, is that they never fit anywhere because they're never given that opportunity to be integrated. And I think that inclusivity is really important. And, and I don't think that means you have to have two empty acres either. I totally agree with you. Yeah. No, we have, we have seen some lovely examples of, I'll give you an example, somebody building a cul-de-sac and putting four homes for disabled people around it. And there's a commons in the middle of the cul-de-sac where they hold community social events where they invite everybody in the neighborhood to come for a barbecue or for an Easter egg hunt or whatever. And that nice green space becomes their mechanism for inviting people onto their property and having relationships. Uh, another really nice example that we've played around with is approaching a foundation that supports the disabled for a different financing stream to build a building that will resemble a barn and that that facility could be a number of different things. For example, it could be, um, an art center where members of the art community are invited in to do coursework with the disabled residents and hold gallery exhibitions with the disabled residents. It could be a scaled down, um, food bank where the, the people had the opportunity maybe to do some farming on the site, sell some vegetables, also collect food donations, and in a controlled and suitable manner operate a food bank where they'd come in contact with the public. Yeah. Um, so just so you know, we're working on how, how you know, interesting. Yeah. That taps back into what Jim was suggesting to him. We talked about previously the art center or something else, but yeah. I think those are great ideas. Just a matter of finding the money. Gene, when you were talking about a cul-de-sac with four houses for disabled that, does that mean there are other houses for non-disabled on the cul-de-sac? So, so they're integrated into a larger... No. Those were all, um, for disabled. If you're getting funding from sources other than DDS, um, you're less restricted. Okay. And so there are, we did see models, for example, where the property was owned by a for-profit entity who was the landlord and rented the units directly to the families of the disabled persons. Uh-huh. Um, but then they had a service and care company who came in and offered variable levels of service to the different residents, depending on the nature of their disability. And in the houses, people were slightly grouped by either interest or, um, you know, mobility or some, uh, some other measure that the care organizations find meaningful. Fascinating. Mindful of what, uh, Rachel said. Uh, the timing is the issue. If Jean wants the letter by the 27th, um, are you comfortable asking dream to draft something and then maybe hand it off to a second person and then get it in by the 27th? Works for me. Or, or hand it off to a couple of people. How long would it take you to get a first draft of that, Jane? Friday? Perfect. And send it to all of us and then we'll all take a look at it. And if you are comfortable being the person whose name it goes under, that's fine. If you think that's a conflict, we'll appoint somebody else. Yeah. It should be the chair, I believe. Okay. Well, Mary, you have always been pliable and, and, uh, willing. And so I, I suggest that Jean send the draft. We all take a look at it and it go out under Mary's name. Well, I'm concerned about the open meeting law. We will, um, we cannot discuss it unless we have a meeting. Um, but I suppose if each of you makes, um, suggestions, uh, I could put to, you know, put it together. Um, but that's fine. I think that would be fine. I wouldn't need to see it again. I'll just give you the tool to work with. If everyone else is comfortable giving you their input. And so you do it and submit it yourself. If it would help Mary, I have some red line capabilities because I have an office. So I'm happy to take, you know, compare and red lines, whatever. I'm not, I'm not, uh, uh, exactly a pro, but if it would help you, I'm happy to do that. Well, and you're also a lawyer. Um, does that sound like a reasonable plan? Okay.
Okay. If, yeah, if people know how to make red line changes, that's the way to send it to me and then I can just add them together. Okay. So if, um, Jean gets it on Friday, um, let's see, the 27th is, um, two weeks from yesterday. Okay. So, um, um, if she gets it to us on Friday, which is the 16th, um, can you, uh, everybody get the, um, uh, suggestions back, um, what the following Thursday, the 22nd at six days?
Yes, it will not be very long. Okay. Um, I might, I might just ask what there was a, there was somebody who was on the email list. I think he's on the planning board. Is he on this committee? He's supposed to be. He's supposed to be the planning board representative, but he's never shown either. Yeah. So I wouldn't include him. I would include, you know, I mean, she, her mother has passed away, but I'm sure she would like to see it and be part of the process. Yeah. Okay. So that's a plan then? Agreed. Uh, if you want, I'll, I'll, I'll make a motion and we can vote on it. If not, I think it's, it's a done deal. Do we need a motion? I, I, I think it's probably a good idea for us to have a motion that the housing partnership is going to be sending a letter, uh, with comments, uh, about the two 12, uh, committees work. So I think, and then I think Barry, it, it can either, the signature on the letter can either be you personally, or it can be you on behalf of the housing partnership. Uh, since we, particularly if we vote now to do such a letter, I will second that motion.
Right. I assume Rachel has it since it came out of her mouth. So I'm sure she will. We'll effectuate it. All right. So we have to do a vote again, Jim.
Sorry, that's our dog. Uh, we have to vote, uh, again. The vote is for the housing partnership is voting now to, uh, write a letter to the two, to it, I guess it goes to the select board, uh, outlining our, our, uh, the framework or the concerns, uh, or the priorities, whatever we want to call it, that we have concerning the development of 212 co-stituate. I thought it would go to the, uh, 212 committee and, or the select board. Gene, who, who should this be addressed to? Uh, why don't you address it to Tom Fay, chairman of the 212 co-stituate road advisory committee? Okay. And he is a selectman, so. Okay. Yeah. There you go. Uh, so, uh, a vote now, Rachel? Yes. Kathy? Yes. Uh, Jean? Yes. Jackie? Yes. Jim? Yes. And Mary? Yes. Okay. Uh, the next thing is the Good Shepherd, and that's about a 30 minute, I mean, a 30 second, um, report from Rachel, I think. Um, you know, I haven't heard yet, uh, anything further from the gentleman there who's the manager of the project or has been communicating with me the last, communication from him said that they were planning to break ground in the first half of 2026. They had a target date at some point of April 1. I don't know if that's still their target date, but given that we are now in the deep of winter, it would make sense that it would be sometime April, May, or June. And so we're hoping to be having a major ribbon cutting ceremony, uh, later on in the spring. Okay. So now the, the main topic, which is, uh, the meat preparing for the meeting with Dana, Dana, the winter, and that's Kathy and, uh, Rachel. Um, Kathy, uh, do you want to first give a quick overview of what happened at the meeting, the ADU meeting that I missed, um, with this, uh, with the planning board, or have you already reported back on that? I don't know. No, we did. Yeah. I think we reported that. I reported that pretty well. We can't read this because there's some members like Jane and Jim were there, I believe. Okay. And, um, but I think we also put in the minutes, we talk about sort of a context and see if you agree with how we discuss this future meeting with Dana based on the discussion in our last meeting, which was, I think, November, whatever it was, 19th. Um, and it was basically a notion that we, our own committee would be using this as an opportunity to brainstorm. We would be going into, everybody would be fully participating. We don't have talking heads. We basically, we did have people who were identified who people thought could be useful as invitees. But the idea was that we would be basically hearing from Dana about ideas and strategies for, I think, understanding, implementing state level support, you know, financial construction barriers, strategies that she's aware of being used effectively across the state and other ideas she has. And that was the, I think, I think general idea was it was for our benefit to really understand better things that we could be doing to promote affordable ADUs. Right. As opposed to like trying to deal with the planning board and getting, you know, restrictions and barriers and people's own limitations in the way. To me, it was the idea that this was an open session where we get to freely talk among ourselves with Dana about what she knows and what, how she can direct us or share with us her ideas. Right, great summary, just for kind of truth in what advertising, Dana LeWinter was one of my star students at Tufts. She's a, at this point, a very accomplished professional. She's held a number of high level jobs around housing policy in the state. She's now one of the principals at the Mass Housing Partnership, and her particular work is focused on community engagement. So she, I think, is as much looking forward to hearing from us because she's looking for strategies across the Commonwealth that will make sense to promote AADUs. So she is, I think, happy that we have invited her, or as happy as anyone is, to be invited to an evening meeting. And we, I believe Kirsten from the RHSO is planning to attend today. I invited Brian Bogia as well. I can't think of anybody else offhand to invite, but if somebody can think of others that we should be inviting. I mean, we could have other towns represented as well, but I haven't reached out any further. But we talked about architects, like Bill Sterling and a few other guys.
Wynn Mallett would be interested in coming. Yeah. And who's the other one? The one that we... Yeah, somebody identified, I don't know these people, Peter Levinson and Doug Sacro. Peter Levinson, he sells, he used to sell hot tubs and now he sells ADUs, pre-fabricated ADUs, I believe. I mean, I think most, for me, in thinking about this, this is more, this is less nuts and bolts about the ADUs than about the policy and the financing and the incentive structure of ADUs. So I'm, you know, I'm less interested at this point in architects because I don't feel like this is, you know, that's kind of a general set of questions around ADUs in general. But the issue about the affordable issue is what are the incentives, if any, that we can come up with to promote ADUs in town and what's legal and what's not legal at this point. And I have some note that from some time ago, whether we could link housing assistance from the housing authority, such as, you know, Section 8 vouchers to an AADU, whether you could kind of link those two in a way. In a way, but I have a note said that says it's not yet approved by the Attorney General, I don't know where that note comes from, but my questions revolve around, and Kathy please chime in, whether we can use CPA money in low interest loans or what we would call a silent second mortgage that would help people finance an affordable dwelling unit. So that, for example, if you know that it's going to cost $10,000 to do a retro of your home or whatever to create an affordable unit, and if you didn't want to go to a bank or take it out of your savings, perhaps you could get a 0% or 1% or 2% loan from the CPA for repairs, and that would be repayable either upon the sale of the house or when the unit is no longer being used as an AADU. You know, to what extent might they be property tax reduction opportunities? Is it at all legal on any level to give somebody a property tax break if the unit is affordable? Because we know that there are going to be property tax implications for adding an AADU, but might there be some kind of break? Again, again, a lot of these are legal questions, policy questions, but I think these, for me, these are the kinds of things that I wanted to see what Dana knows about and to throw them out to her and see what other incentives we can come up with that might make it attractive. We don't even know how much people are going to be interested in ADUs to begin with, let alone AADUs, which could... I think part of the... Well, I think in the last meeting in November when we had this conversation, part of the discussion around the architects was that they wanted to talk about construction costs, and people had an interest in how much... How much... And it came up at the meeting with the planning board, you know, how much did they cost? And they threw out the number, I believe, of 200 to 400,000. And it seemed to rock people on their heels a bit that it was that expensive. That's a new unit, I assume, a whole new unit. A detachable unit was the idea. Well, they didn't specify, to be honest, but that's what was thrown out. And anyway, others in the room questioned that in terms of some of the architects who didn't... Thought that was over the top and that there were prefab and other opportunities that could be available. But anyway, there was that sort of like a design challenge kind of concept. There was another section, another idea, just along the lines where you're talking about, Kristen raised the idea that there were state financing that was going to be available or that had been promised. Now, she was kind of shot down that she wasn't right. I don't know the answer, but again, I'm hoping that Dana is more up to date on this and can steer us the right way in terms of what kind of financial, you know, construction barriers, but also opportunities to overcome them exist. There's something called, you know, mass housing or the home modification loan program. I don't know what their status is, but these are things that were in my notes. And, and Kristen did make an effort to raise that at the meeting and at that last session and was not successful really in getting any time to do so. Um, so she may be more informed as well. Um, but you said then, of course, Jim to you. Yeah. Jim, you went to the planning boards. Um, I, I went to that meeting last week and you know, was there. And, and, and, uh, a friend of mine who is waiting for, to build a more than 900 foot, uh, square foot ADU because she is a, a, an acre of property. It's going to be attached. It's not near any of the lines, you know, and this is L an elderly couple. They're wonderful people and their son and grandchildren and daughter-in-law are right there. They've moved in and they just want to break ground and do it. And the planning board is just putzing along. I mean, they're just so slow and deliberate and it's frustrating. So we all talked about, uh, uh, allowing more than 900 square feet, at least by special permit, but possibly by right. And the planning board didn't want to venture into it as of right. And we talked about a bunch of other things, but, um, they, they don't. They are proposing in their proposed amendment. It would allow that, correct? It would allow it by special permit, but they're quite inflexible. They don't want to set standards and it might be good not to set standards. I, I, you know, I could go either way on that. Um, I don't want to give them too much, uh, discretion, uh, you know, and standards might really scare people away. Um, I would like to respond to a couple of the points and you've all made great points. So I appreciate it. I think Bill Sterling and when mallet have some very interesting ideas and when, you know, in terms of his modular housing and stuff might be able to add a lot of ideas which seem to be a little out of the box, but might be interesting. And the other is Doug Levine. I don't know if he would be interested. I've, I've dealt with him a long ago with when mallet, he's a selectman. Now he's a lawyer. He worked for the state and he might know something about some of these state programs. And if he has the time, he might be interested in attending. So I don't think it would hurt to invite Bill and win and Doug. I, I don't feel the same way about Peter Levinson. I mean, he's, I wouldn't mind it, but I, I think he's, you know, he comes from the profit sector and I'm not sure that would add a lot to our brainstorming meeting. I just don't want to get, I honestly, I I'm happy to have them. I just don't want to get deep into the, to the construction, physical issues of, of the AAD use, because it feels like for me, that's a separate issue from the financing and from the policy and from the incentive structure. Yeah. I agree. I don't want to go down. Yeah. I would like to join with them for those conversations, but the, the block. The block and the path is the financing. And that's where we really need help. One of the things that I think I have heard that bothered me is that some of the, some of the people who gave testimony in the 212 constituent committee were people who have disabled family members. And are having trouble finding housing for the disabled family member, like finding the right fit in a residential home of some kind. And those people were talking about building a D use. But if they, if I understood this correctly, if they used and built an ADU for their adult son, who, since he's an adult, qualifies for things like housing vouchers. If, if, if they built an ADU on their lot, he couldn't use his housing voucher. So if they put him someplace else, he has a subsidy. And if they build an ADU and house them on their own land, even though he's a disabled person who under state policy would qualify for benefits. He can't use them on his family's property. If that's true, that's nuts. Yeah. Because those are the people who have the incentive to build. Yeah. And if they, if families have disabled persons built homes for their family member and maybe room for a caretaker who would live with the family member. Those people be units growing, building units like crazy that if they could get the support that they'd get on any other location. Well, it feels like that's exactly the kind of question, Jean, that we need to be posing to Dana, who has, who has the scope of what's going on across the state. Yes. I agree with you. You know, I think the reason for that probably had to do with something around self-dealing that. Of course. Benefit from a section eight by, but here you've got an example of exactly that possible requirement working against the very families who, as you put it, have the most incentive to do this kind of unit. So I think this is exactly the kind of question that we want to hear from somebody at the state level who presumably has heard this issue before. And let's get it clarified. And if there's a policy change that we need to be advocating for, let's have that conversation. Yeah. And it's a sweet deal for the state. I mean, they're looking for places to do placements. Yeah. And if these families are incentivized, they'll be building units all over the place. Well, we don't know that, but at least that it shouldn't be an impediment. Right. And if it is currently an impediment, it sounds like a fix has to be worked out, a work around that has to be worked out. Well, let me go back. I'm assuming that Rachel and Kathy are going to run the meeting with Dana. And so I'm wondering if you can frame it so that if architects come, that the majority of the meeting will be on strategies, incentives, et cetera, et cetera. But set aside, say, 15 minutes to focus a little bit more on the cost, because that is an impediment. And that way they would, you know, the amount of time that would really be focused on the expense side of it will allow them to do brainstorming on other issues and then just focus a specific amount of time to just focus on the finances. I'm going to be talking to Dana, you know, a week or so before the meeting, I can certainly give her that kind of the broad outline of what we're talking about. Is somebody going to invite the architect specifically to this? I'm happy to if you want me to. I'm happy to invite Wynn and Bill and or Doug Levine. I am happy for them to come as long as they understand that the architectural, the cost piece will not be the primary focus. It will be a relatively short part. Kathy, are you okay with this idea? I'm totally okay. Yeah, because yes, one of the other issues, and it's something they can just comment on, they don't have to do presentations. But one of the questions was about pre-approved designs. Would that be a way of mitigating costs for people if the state had accepted pre or the town had accepted pre-approved designs that would, you know, basically fly through the permit process, if you will. And I don't know what their take on that would be. I assume they would have opinions. But in any case, it's those kind of things. It's like the property tax question, Rachel. We know that Salem has done this. So we want to know what other communities have done it and what, in fact, has Salem done and what are the policies it look like in writing. And I will get that. But Dana will know other towns if they've done it. Pat, Mike, you and I, we actually, when I talk to Dana, it may be good for us to do a three-way conversation in the prep for that meeting. But we can talk about that later on. If you'll remind me, this is going to be an in-person meeting? It is in-person. It will also be zoom capabilities, but I am really hoping that all of our committee, I mean, it will be a much more dynamic interchange. We have a guest coming. I really want people to be there as much as possible in the flesh. I think it'll make a difference. I think it'll be more productive. I want Dana to see us and, you know, hear from our committee directly. It's a better interaction. Will it be at the COA? I'm not sure where it will be yet, but I'll get that information. But Jim, Doug Sacra has already attended some of these meetings, and he's an architect. And so if you're going to invite Bill and Wynn, I think Doug needs to be on that list. If somebody has his email address, please forward it to me. Okay. That'd be great. And is this going to be a longer meeting than usual? Is it going to be an hour? Are we going to- I think it's scheduled 7 to 8.30. 7 to 8.30. Great. And I, other than Mary convening the meeting, I think this will be the only topic of conversation. Great. At the meeting. Great. I'm excited. And I want to thank all of you for all your work on this. Well, other things that you want to talk about? I don't want to cut your short. We've done that already. I mean, the planning board did that already, so you have as much time as you want. I feel like, you know, I think we're on the same page that more than an hour is going to be devoted to hearing about the options we've come up with, the ideas we've come up with here from Dana, what she knows, whether it's about Salem or other communities that are about the Section 8 issue that Jean just mentioned. You know, we will have an outline of the various policy proposals, and we will perhaps end with a conversation about the cost possibilities from the architects. The architects. But again, I just want to underscore that in inviting them. I hope they don't feel like they are the centerpiece of the conversation. It can it can go. It can go the direction very easily. Yeah, but that's not what this brainstorming is supposed to be about. So we're just repeating myself again. I appreciate it. Thank you for arranging this and for for mentoring a brilliant woman who's now in a position of power is one of my many star students. I have to admit she's one of the stars, but I've got quite a number who I am very, very proud of. Well, that's great. I think that speaks well for the professor. Absolutely. No question. If you do it for 38 years, some of them come out as stars, right? Just anyway, Kathy, anything more to say on this? No, no, I think it's great. We're all on the same page. So our next meeting is February 4th at seven o'clock. We'll find out where exactly. Jim is going to contact some of these people if you have other people that you think can contribute, including people from other communities. Rachel? I just don't know the other town's housing people at all. Yeah, I honestly think this point, you know, especially after what happened the last meeting, I think if we keep control of this agenda more, we'll get more out of it and we'll learn more ourselves. And we really think we know we have a lot of questions and I think we already have a number of policy ideas and we want more information and we want to hear from Dane. I think you're right, Kathy. I think you're right. Well, we have two experts who are going to control the meeting. So, yeah. Okay. Homegrown experts, that's the best kind. I mean, we have Jean, who's the supportive housing expert, and we have Rachel and Kathy on ADU. This is great. Yeah. Yeah. I'll put it on my resume, Jim. I don't think you need to, Rachel. I think there's no more need for... Padding my resume. Yeah. You know, I had to put out a resume recently and I realized, you know, I haven't done it in five years. And there must be a reason why I stopped adding to it. Well, resumes turn out to be very, very useful when you're an academic, because if you want to know when you went to some meeting in some country that you cannot remember, your resume, my resume, tells me when I was in Greece, when I was in Australia, when I was in China, when I was who knows where. And the resume has it all. I mean, it's like, I don't have to remember anything. It's like a travel log. It is. It is. It's wonderful. Anyway, Mary, I think I interrupted you. You were going... Are you waiting for somebody to propose that we adjourn? Well, I'm assuming... I'm just making sure that we're ready to adjourn. My sense is we are, but I don't... Can I ask one question before we go? Jim, I know, went to that meeting with the planning board relative to the proposed amendment. Yeah. And maybe, Jean, you did too. I'm just curious as to whether there was any pushback. No, Jean had another meeting. It was just Janelle and me. And I was online. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. You're right. I was on Zoom. And I did make a comment. Thank you. So how much... How much... Yeah. Did you have concerns, basically, on what they were proposing? Were there... Was there a conversation or not? Well, they presented it in a very dry manner, I must say. I was only half listening, I admit. It was... You know, it didn't have a lot of passion. They're doing their job. And there will be a revised plan for the warrant. But their goal was basically to increase the square footage, allow it by permit. Yeah, because the first time around, we couldn't increase it because we wanted to get the two-thirds vote. Now we don't need the two-thirds vote so we can add to the basic footprint that was established initially. And that makes sense. I don't disagree with that. And they did talk at the meeting about adding additional language about affordable ADUs. So they seem to want affordable ADUs. They're amenable to the concept. And I think it's going to be up to us to show them how exciting and how creative we can be in terms of making suggestions and coming up with options. They're amenable to more than 900 square feet under, you know, if the circumstances warrant, they just didn't want to be held to that by right. In the overall sense. They thought it was prudent to just do it by special permit on a case-by-case basis. And that's kind of my summation of it. Okay. And that was their target issue as opposed to? That was the primary one. That was the primary issue. Whether it should be increased, you know, increased by right or kept at 900 square feet and increased only by special permit. And they were inclined toward the latter, which honestly I think is fine. I think it's not a bad solution for them. Yeah. And Jim, the reason for all the replacement language was basically for supposedly cleaning up the code. Yeah. And because the original one, we needed to get a two thirds vote. So it was deliberately very narrow and just what the state had allowed. And now the thought is we can be more creative and add to it based on the needs of Wayland. So I think that, you know, one option is more than 900 square feet. One option is, you know, additional affordability features and, you know, somebody like Wynn Mallet with some prefab ideas or things like that might be able to come up with other options that we really haven't thought of. But I think they're open now to adding to it. It's not going to happen this round because it's got to be submitted. Tomorrow. Yeah. But but I think the point is, let's keep building on it incrementally. I just didn't know whether there was in this. I'm just going to the weeds too much. But there was one provision where they talked about no property zone for only single family residences may contain more than the primary dwelling and two accessory dwellings. Anyway, my point was, they were dropping the language from the state law in the single family district, which was anywhere where a single family home is identified, is located. It's a broader definition. And I didn't know whether this was deliberate or whether it was just that type of thing. I don't think it was deliberate. Yeah, I don't think it was deliberate. Okay, the kind of thing that I can fix later in terms of just a fixed technical change then. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Jean had her hand up. Oh, I think I'll forego further discussion in the interest of everybody being able to go read a good book. I was going to go do some knitting, but thank you. I move that we adjourn. Is there a second? Second. All right. Roll call vote. Jim. Yes. Jackie. Yes. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Kathy. Yes. Kathy, Jackie, Jean, and Rachel and Mary. Yes. Okay. So we are adjourned at 813. Thank you all and stay safe. Jean, I look forward to seeing your draft and I will send out the emails. And if somebody will send me Doug's email address, I'd appreciate it. Okay. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. Nice to see you, Rachel. Nice to be seen.
Anybody want to ask me some questions? Well, you wrote a report or you're writing a draft of the report. Uh-huh. Um, would you speak right into your microphone, Mary? Because you fade in and out for me. Okay. Okay. Uh, you were, um, uh, doing the first draft of the report. Right. Um, can you tell us a little more about that process so we know what to expect? I mean, basically we're trying to summarize for the select board all the things we've learned. Um, and you know, emphasizing all the usual things you, I think I sent you a copy. If you saw all my list of appendices, you can see I'm attempting to drown the select board and data. Um, but, um, so we're trying to, one of the things we're talking about is how do you right size the facility? If somebody wants to build a DDS five bedroom home, they need generously a quarter of an acre, maybe even smaller. And what we've got is four acres. Um, that four acres, uh, according to the town planner can be subdivided. So the town, and, and they wrote the article at town meeting in such a way that if they choose, they can choose to develop just one portion of the area, which is zoned R 60. Um, and they can either retain for future use the remaining plot, or they can, uh, sell it at market rate. Um, you know, there's arguments for going in every direction. Um, the neighbor's stated preference is to basically put two five bedroom ranch style houses on those lots, one in each lot, and have that be the capacity of the site. Um, I'm struggling with that myself because four acres is a rare and extraordinary opportunity. I didn't know that when I joined this committee, but I know it now. And these, all these organizations that build this kind of housing struggle to find sites. Uh, most of it is affordability in terms of getting a piece of land that makes your spreadsheets work. Um, lot of it is citing proximity to services. Um, a lot of times what they end up doing is buying older houses, like old Victorian houses that are from an era where the rooms were big and boxy and there was plenty of space and they retrofit them. The problem is that with the, you know, miracles of modern medicine and stuff, um, disabled people are living extraordinarily long lives and they are becoming seniors and they can't go up the stairs to the bedrooms anymore. So they're finding while it, that housing acquisition model worked well in the past, as they can see, it's not working well now. Um, so my struggle is, um, you know, if it's possible to get community acceptance of doing a facility that would house more people in a variety of mixes. Um, I'm putting in the report examples of facilities that have, uh, different size groupings. A lot of the ones that I've been attracted to have between 30 and 40 residents. Uh, part of the reason for the attraction is that in reading sort of the planning of various organizations who talk about how they make their company work, a lot of them find the sweet spot for the financing of their projects in that number of units. Um, but you know, it certainly would be, we've seen lots of models where they do, um, DDS housing, but they're putting three buildings on the lot or four buildings on the lot and have, have garnered, uh, DDS support, uh, by calling them, um, planned, planned living communities. They, you know, they give them a different kind of name that doesn't trigger any of the regulations. Uh, so they seem to get acceptance. Um, so there's some in, in those sizing models, which bump up to around 20 people. Um, but I think for the selectmen that, you know, the most important struggle is going to be finding really good vendors who will put together a financially viable project so that, um, some of these projects do fail. Um, and it's really hard to get any statistics. I looked really hard for statistics and nobody publishes financial failures of these kinds of homes for disabled people that I could find. I may just not know which professional journals to look in. I was able to find data for nursing homes, which have a very high rate of financial failure. Um, and I did, I really didn't know if those were a good proxy or not. Um, but then the, the, the main thing I think the selectmen is going to do after finding good vendors is just to how to get neighborhood acceptance and whether or not there's any possibility of, uh, housing more people on what is a very large site, um, without, you know, having lawsuits basically from people who don't, uh, support building that kind of home on those kinds of residential lots. So, uh, Jean is doing the initial draft. Uh, she is going on vacation and, uh, probably Bill Whitney is taking over the draft. Um, and, uh, like Jean, I'm concerned with putting a small number of people on this four acre parcel. I have written, uh, notes to both Tom and Bill Whitney pointing out that, uh, uh, getting land is even harder than getting the money, uh, to build the projects and that this is an opportunity and we should be, um, trying to make, um, the best possible use of this parcel of land. Um, Jean had mentioned before that she'd like people to show up at, uh, these meetings and they are meeting frequently. Um, but I'm wondering if we should, um, as a committee, uh, draft a letter, uh, for the committee, um, with, you know, our, our idea of how best to use this land. Uh, Rachel served on the deadly pond, uh, land and we lost the entire plot. Uh, and I pointed out that even the federal government charges, uh, market rates for land for affordable housing because the 1936 law or whenever it was great, Rachel knows better than I does not include affordable housing. We could build a jail there and we'd get the land free, but we don't get the land, uh, uh, at no cost, um, for affordable housing. So land is really vital. And so I'm wondering, uh, if the committee is interested in, uh, weighing in, uh, with the 212 committee. I think that's a great idea. I, I, uh, I think we, as a group can, without suggesting any particular alternative should weigh in and say two, two buildings with five occupants each, it does not seem like the best use of the land. And, and further, we might say along with Jean's thoughts that in the long run, this might not be the best or most sustainable model. And we'd like the committee to consider more uses on the land, whether it's a, uh, a teaching facility as we were talking about, or an arts facility or mixed housing with, uh, one wing for the disabled or most disabled and, and other residents in the facility who are not disabled. Um, whatever. I mean, I, I think we, we have a lot of creative minds and I think it's important to let them know that we've been part of this process and don't want to get left out. I think I had a little trouble hearing you, Mary, I think you said something about Dudley Pond. And I'm assuming that was an earlier one, but I, I remember the Oxbow issue where we wanted to buy the property and then a developer came in and we didn't even, we couldn't even get a single affordable unit out of that. I mean, it's, it's nuts. That's not true. The town ended up buying 1.75 acres of land at market grade. I don't remember what, what, I think, I think Jim was speaking to lunch away, not Oxbow. That's what I'm talking about. I'm sorry. I got the, I got the name wrong and, and you know, it's really unfortunate. This is a loss of a fabulous opportunity that the town had and I don't think we want to leave it up to a developer or somebody else. And I, even though I certainly agree that we don't want to have a project which the neighbors hate because that will not be helpful. Um, we have other projects like the St. Anne's project where there are neighbors who object to it, but the thinking is that over time they'll realize that it's really a benefit to them. So I don't think we have to cave in to initial neighbors' objections, but should be looking to be a little more aggressive or creative or whatever. So can I just say something, Jean? First thing, thanks. Thanks so much, Jean, for all that hard work. You've clearly, uh, done a ton of work here. And, uh, one thing that you are not correct about, which is that the committee knows more about this than you do. I think it's absolutely true that you know more about this. In fact, I, I think it's fair to say that the committee really hasn't focused on this particular sub-issue of housing problems. Uh, historically, we've been doing that much more in the last couple of years, as the opportunities that we are familiar with have arisen. But in general, this hasn't been a focus of the committee. And we're, we're aware of the enormous need. So right now, I would like to just say you are the expert on this much more than any of the rest of us. Um, I, I would also like to say, I, I like the idea of our writing a letter and, um, it would make sense, I think, for you to try to put down your five or six pithy points about what the housing partnership should be advocating or advocating against. I really appreciate your comments about it being very hard to believe that having a five-unit, uh, facility can be cost-effective when you need 24-7 care for many, uh, essentially for these kinds of, uh, group homes. Yeah. So it's, um, it's really, uh, a conundrum. It's a very, very, this may be ideal for the residents. A five-unit group home may be the perfect size, but, uh, it, it's probably not a viable model, uh, for us to consider. Anyway, um, that was just my two cents. I, Mary, in the interest of time, I, I don't remember how much time you allotted to this, but, you know, uh, Kathy and I are eager to make sure we have that conversation about affordable ADUs. Right. That is, um, you know, that meeting with Dana is coming up in a few weeks. So I just wanted to be mindful of the time, um, and make sure that we don't shortchange that conversation. Well, that's, uh, you're right. Um, I think your suggestion, uh, of, uh, Jean to write down the, the major points that we ought to hit, uh, is a good one. The report is final on February 15th. Is that correct? Yeah, it has to be submitted by then. So I will have, uh, another, the next draft will be done for the 27th of this month. And I would like to have, um, your letter in, um, with that draft. Um, so I, I think it's important that all the committees in town that whose work bears on this, uh, somehow participate, uh, I contacted, um, Julie Secord in the last couple of days, and I know one of the things they do in their office is talk to seniors, not only about their own care, um, if they're disabled, but also a lot of aging seniors have disabled younger family members that they talked to the, um, staff and the COA about, you know, here I am doing my estate planning and I have this niece or great niece who has no resources and, you know, what is the family going to be able to do? So I'm, I'm hoping to get her to appear before the committee. Um, but in any case, I'm glad to write up a first draft of a letter, uh, with points that I think bear on the, uh, our, our guiding document, which whose name is escaping me this minute, the housing production plan. Okay. What I'll do is I actually read it recently. I will go through and pick out the things because that's the purview of this particular committee is, and try to tap, tie objectives of that plan to opportunities on the site. Can I ask a question before we move on? Um, I'll make a point. I guess my is, is the, I went through what you had provided us with the 34 pages, but is the notion here that the committee is going to make a recommendation to the select board as to what the, not the process, but in fact, what the plan will be for the number of units for? Uh, no, what the, what the committee will do is, um, provide information that we hope will shape the request for proposals. And at this point, we don't plan to limit that recommendation by number of units or I thought you said, well, I'm talking about the preferences of the committee. And at this point, they have, that's what we're talking about, but I don't know. That's where we'll end up in a few weeks. I can only tell you what's happened. I guess my, yeah, my only concern, and I like the idea of you're giving us your, the five points, because I think that'll be very helpful for us to better understand. I think we also have to remember what the Olmstead Act and the Olmstead case was about, though. That's one of my concerns is that this is about people, people with disabilities being integrated effectively into our community. And I kind of wonder how effectively they're integrated if they're in a 30 person facility. Um, I, I just want to, I think we have to, I don't know, I mean, I haven't been to your meeting, so I don't know how much discussion there's been about that, but I do think that that is one of the issues about people with disabilities have, is that they never fit anywhere because they're never given that opportunity to be integrated. And I think that inclusivity is really important. And, and I don't think that means you have to have two empty acres either. I totally agree with you. Yeah. No, we have, we have seen some lovely examples of, I'll give you an example, somebody building a cul-de-sac and putting four homes for disabled people around it. And there's a commons in the middle of the cul-de-sac where they hold community social events where they invite everybody in the neighborhood to come for a barbecue or for an Easter egg hunt or whatever. And that nice green space becomes their mechanism for inviting people onto their property and having relationships. Uh, another really nice example that we've played around with is approaching a foundation that supports the disabled for a different financing stream to build a building that will resemble a barn and that that facility could be a number of different things. For example, it could be, um, an art center where members of the art community are invited in to do coursework with the disabled residents and hold gallery exhibitions with the disabled residents. It could be a scaled down, um, food bank where the, the people had the opportunity maybe to do some farming on the site, sell some vegetables, also collect food donations, and in a controlled and suitable manner operate a food bank where they'd come in contact with the public. Yeah. Um, so just so you know, we're working on how, how you know, interesting. Yeah. That taps back into what Jim was suggesting to him. We talked about previously the art center or something else, but yeah. I think those are great ideas. Just a matter of finding the money. Gene, when you were talking about a cul-de-sac with four houses for disabled that, does that mean there are other houses for non-disabled on the cul-de-sac? So, so they're integrated into a larger... No. Those were all, um, for disabled. If you're getting funding from sources other than DDS, um, you're less restricted. Okay. And so there are, we did see models, for example, where the property was owned by a for-profit entity who was the landlord and rented the units directly to the families of the disabled persons. Uh-huh. Um, but then they had a service and care company who came in and offered variable levels of service to the different residents, depending on the nature of their disability. And in the houses, people were slightly grouped by either interest or, um, you know, mobility or some, uh, some other measure that the care organizations find meaningful. Fascinating. Mindful of what, uh, Rachel said. Uh, the timing is the issue. If Jean wants the letter by the 27th, um, are you comfortable asking dream to draft something and then maybe hand it off to a second person and then get it in by the 27th? Works for me. Or, or hand it off to a couple of people. How long would it take you to get a first draft of that, Jane? Friday? Perfect. And send it to all of us and then we'll all take a look at it. And if you are comfortable being the person whose name it goes under, that's fine. If you think that's a conflict, we'll appoint somebody else. Yeah. It should be the chair, I believe. Okay. Well, Mary, you have always been pliable and, and, uh, willing. And so I, I suggest that Jean send the draft. We all take a look at it and it go out under Mary's name. Well, I'm concerned about the open meeting law. We will, um, we cannot discuss it unless we have a meeting. Um, but I suppose if each of you makes, um, suggestions, uh, I could put to, you know, put it together. Um, but that's fine. I think that would be fine. I wouldn't need to see it again. I'll just give you the tool to work with. If everyone else is comfortable giving you their input. And so you do it and submit it yourself. If it would help Mary, I have some red line capabilities because I have an office. So I'm happy to take, you know, compare and red lines, whatever. I'm not, I'm not, uh, uh, exactly a pro, but if it would help you, I'm happy to do that. Well, and you're also a lawyer. Um, does that sound like a reasonable plan? Okay.
Okay. If, yeah, if people know how to make red line changes, that's the way to send it to me and then I can just add them together. Okay. So if, um, Jean gets it on Friday, um, let's see, the 27th is, um, two weeks from yesterday. Okay. So, um, um, if she gets it to us on Friday, which is the 16th, um, can you, uh, everybody get the, um, uh, suggestions back, um, what the following Thursday, the 22nd at six days?
Yes, it will not be very long. Okay. Um, I might, I might just ask what there was a, there was somebody who was on the email list. I think he's on the planning board. Is he on this committee? He's supposed to be. He's supposed to be the planning board representative, but he's never shown either. Yeah. So I wouldn't include him. I would include, you know, I mean, she, her mother has passed away, but I'm sure she would like to see it and be part of the process. Yeah. Okay. So that's a plan then? Agreed. Uh, if you want, I'll, I'll, I'll make a motion and we can vote on it. If not, I think it's, it's a done deal. Do we need a motion? I, I, I think it's probably a good idea for us to have a motion that the housing partnership is going to be sending a letter, uh, with comments, uh, about the two 12, uh, committees work. So I think, and then I think Barry, it, it can either, the signature on the letter can either be you personally, or it can be you on behalf of the housing partnership. Uh, since we, particularly if we vote now to do such a letter, I will second that motion.
Right. I assume Rachel has it since it came out of her mouth. So I'm sure she will. We'll effectuate it. All right. So we have to do a vote again, Jim.
Sorry, that's our dog. Uh, we have to vote, uh, again. The vote is for the housing partnership is voting now to, uh, write a letter to the two, to it, I guess it goes to the select board, uh, outlining our, our, uh, the framework or the concerns, uh, or the priorities, whatever we want to call it, that we have concerning the development of 212 co-stituate. I thought it would go to the, uh, 212 committee and, or the select board. Gene, who, who should this be addressed to? Uh, why don't you address it to Tom Fay, chairman of the 212 co-stituate road advisory committee? Okay. And he is a selectman, so. Okay. Yeah. There you go. Uh, so, uh, a vote now, Rachel? Yes. Kathy? Yes. Uh, Jean? Yes. Jackie? Yes. Jim? Yes. And Mary? Yes. Okay. Uh, the next thing is the Good Shepherd, and that's about a 30 minute, I mean, a 30 second, um, report from Rachel, I think. Um, you know, I haven't heard yet, uh, anything further from the gentleman there who's the manager of the project or has been communicating with me the last, communication from him said that they were planning to break ground in the first half of 2026. They had a target date at some point of April 1. I don't know if that's still their target date, but given that we are now in the deep of winter, it would make sense that it would be sometime April, May, or June. And so we're hoping to be having a major ribbon cutting ceremony, uh, later on in the spring. Okay. So now the, the main topic, which is, uh, the meat preparing for the meeting with Dana, Dana, the winter, and that's Kathy and, uh, Rachel. Um, Kathy, uh, do you want to first give a quick overview of what happened at the meeting, the ADU meeting that I missed, um, with this, uh, with the planning board, or have you already reported back on that? I don't know. No, we did. Yeah. I think we reported that. I reported that pretty well. We can't read this because there's some members like Jane and Jim were there, I believe. Okay. And, um, but I think we also put in the minutes, we talk about sort of a context and see if you agree with how we discuss this future meeting with Dana based on the discussion in our last meeting, which was, I think, November, whatever it was, 19th. Um, and it was basically a notion that we, our own committee would be using this as an opportunity to brainstorm. We would be going into, everybody would be fully participating. We don't have talking heads. We basically, we did have people who were identified who people thought could be useful as invitees. But the idea was that we would be basically hearing from Dana about ideas and strategies for, I think, understanding, implementing state level support, you know, financial construction barriers, strategies that she's aware of being used effectively across the state and other ideas she has. And that was the, I think, I think general idea was it was for our benefit to really understand better things that we could be doing to promote affordable ADUs. Right. As opposed to like trying to deal with the planning board and getting, you know, restrictions and barriers and people's own limitations in the way. To me, it was the idea that this was an open session where we get to freely talk among ourselves with Dana about what she knows and what, how she can direct us or share with us her ideas. Right, great summary, just for kind of truth in what advertising, Dana LeWinter was one of my star students at Tufts. She's a, at this point, a very accomplished professional. She's held a number of high level jobs around housing policy in the state. She's now one of the principals at the Mass Housing Partnership, and her particular work is focused on community engagement. So she, I think, is as much looking forward to hearing from us because she's looking for strategies across the Commonwealth that will make sense to promote AADUs. So she is, I think, happy that we have invited her, or as happy as anyone is, to be invited to an evening meeting. And we, I believe Kirsten from the RHSO is planning to attend today. I invited Brian Bogia as well. I can't think of anybody else offhand to invite, but if somebody can think of others that we should be inviting. I mean, we could have other towns represented as well, but I haven't reached out any further. But we talked about architects, like Bill Sterling and a few other guys.
Wynn Mallett would be interested in coming. Yeah. And who's the other one? The one that we... Yeah, somebody identified, I don't know these people, Peter Levinson and Doug Sacro. Peter Levinson, he sells, he used to sell hot tubs and now he sells ADUs, pre-fabricated ADUs, I believe. I mean, I think most, for me, in thinking about this, this is more, this is less nuts and bolts about the ADUs than about the policy and the financing and the incentive structure of ADUs. So I'm, you know, I'm less interested at this point in architects because I don't feel like this is, you know, that's kind of a general set of questions around ADUs in general. But the issue about the affordable issue is what are the incentives, if any, that we can come up with to promote ADUs in town and what's legal and what's not legal at this point. And I have some note that from some time ago, whether we could link housing assistance from the housing authority, such as, you know, Section 8 vouchers to an AADU, whether you could kind of link those two in a way. In a way, but I have a note said that says it's not yet approved by the Attorney General, I don't know where that note comes from, but my questions revolve around, and Kathy please chime in, whether we can use CPA money in low interest loans or what we would call a silent second mortgage that would help people finance an affordable dwelling unit. So that, for example, if you know that it's going to cost $10,000 to do a retro of your home or whatever to create an affordable unit, and if you didn't want to go to a bank or take it out of your savings, perhaps you could get a 0% or 1% or 2% loan from the CPA for repairs, and that would be repayable either upon the sale of the house or when the unit is no longer being used as an AADU. You know, to what extent might they be property tax reduction opportunities? Is it at all legal on any level to give somebody a property tax break if the unit is affordable? Because we know that there are going to be property tax implications for adding an AADU, but might there be some kind of break? Again, again, a lot of these are legal questions, policy questions, but I think these, for me, these are the kinds of things that I wanted to see what Dana knows about and to throw them out to her and see what other incentives we can come up with that might make it attractive. We don't even know how much people are going to be interested in ADUs to begin with, let alone AADUs, which could... I think part of the... Well, I think in the last meeting in November when we had this conversation, part of the discussion around the architects was that they wanted to talk about construction costs, and people had an interest in how much... How much... And it came up at the meeting with the planning board, you know, how much did they cost? And they threw out the number, I believe, of 200 to 400,000. And it seemed to rock people on their heels a bit that it was that expensive. That's a new unit, I assume, a whole new unit. A detachable unit was the idea. Well, they didn't specify, to be honest, but that's what was thrown out. And anyway, others in the room questioned that in terms of some of the architects who didn't... Thought that was over the top and that there were prefab and other opportunities that could be available. But anyway, there was that sort of like a design challenge kind of concept. There was another section, another idea, just along the lines where you're talking about, Kristen raised the idea that there were state financing that was going to be available or that had been promised. Now, she was kind of shot down that she wasn't right. I don't know the answer, but again, I'm hoping that Dana is more up to date on this and can steer us the right way in terms of what kind of financial, you know, construction barriers, but also opportunities to overcome them exist. There's something called, you know, mass housing or the home modification loan program. I don't know what their status is, but these are things that were in my notes. And, and Kristen did make an effort to raise that at the meeting and at that last session and was not successful really in getting any time to do so. Um, so she may be more informed as well. Um, but you said then, of course, Jim to you. Yeah. Jim, you went to the planning boards. Um, I, I went to that meeting last week and you know, was there. And, and, and, uh, a friend of mine who is waiting for, to build a more than 900 foot, uh, square foot ADU because she is a, a, an acre of property. It's going to be attached. It's not near any of the lines, you know, and this is L an elderly couple. They're wonderful people and their son and grandchildren and daughter-in-law are right there. They've moved in and they just want to break ground and do it. And the planning board is just putzing along. I mean, they're just so slow and deliberate and it's frustrating. So we all talked about, uh, uh, allowing more than 900 square feet, at least by special permit, but possibly by right. And the planning board didn't want to venture into it as of right. And we talked about a bunch of other things, but, um, they, they don't. They are proposing in their proposed amendment. It would allow that, correct? It would allow it by special permit, but they're quite inflexible. They don't want to set standards and it might be good not to set standards. I, I, you know, I could go either way on that. Um, I don't want to give them too much, uh, discretion, uh, you know, and standards might really scare people away. Um, I would like to respond to a couple of the points and you've all made great points. So I appreciate it. I think Bill Sterling and when mallet have some very interesting ideas and when, you know, in terms of his modular housing and stuff might be able to add a lot of ideas which seem to be a little out of the box, but might be interesting. And the other is Doug Levine. I don't know if he would be interested. I've, I've dealt with him a long ago with when mallet, he's a selectman. Now he's a lawyer. He worked for the state and he might know something about some of these state programs. And if he has the time, he might be interested in attending. So I don't think it would hurt to invite Bill and win and Doug. I, I don't feel the same way about Peter Levinson. I mean, he's, I wouldn't mind it, but I, I think he's, you know, he comes from the profit sector and I'm not sure that would add a lot to our brainstorming meeting. I just don't want to get, I honestly, I I'm happy to have them. I just don't want to get deep into the, to the construction, physical issues of, of the AAD use, because it feels like for me, that's a separate issue from the financing and from the policy and from the incentive structure. Yeah. I agree. I don't want to go down. Yeah. I would like to join with them for those conversations, but the, the block. The block and the path is the financing. And that's where we really need help. One of the things that I think I have heard that bothered me is that some of the, some of the people who gave testimony in the 212 constituent committee were people who have disabled family members. And are having trouble finding housing for the disabled family member, like finding the right fit in a residential home of some kind. And those people were talking about building a D use. But if they, if I understood this correctly, if they used and built an ADU for their adult son, who, since he's an adult, qualifies for things like housing vouchers. If, if, if they built an ADU on their lot, he couldn't use his housing voucher. So if they put him someplace else, he has a subsidy. And if they build an ADU and house them on their own land, even though he's a disabled person who under state policy would qualify for benefits. He can't use them on his family's property. If that's true, that's nuts. Yeah. Because those are the people who have the incentive to build. Yeah. And if they, if families have disabled persons built homes for their family member and maybe room for a caretaker who would live with the family member. Those people be units growing, building units like crazy that if they could get the support that they'd get on any other location. Well, it feels like that's exactly the kind of question, Jean, that we need to be posing to Dana, who has, who has the scope of what's going on across the state. Yes. I agree with you. You know, I think the reason for that probably had to do with something around self-dealing that. Of course. Benefit from a section eight by, but here you've got an example of exactly that possible requirement working against the very families who, as you put it, have the most incentive to do this kind of unit. So I think this is exactly the kind of question that we want to hear from somebody at the state level who presumably has heard this issue before. And let's get it clarified. And if there's a policy change that we need to be advocating for, let's have that conversation. Yeah. And it's a sweet deal for the state. I mean, they're looking for places to do placements. Yeah. And if these families are incentivized, they'll be building units all over the place. Well, we don't know that, but at least that it shouldn't be an impediment. Right. And if it is currently an impediment, it sounds like a fix has to be worked out, a work around that has to be worked out. Well, let me go back. I'm assuming that Rachel and Kathy are going to run the meeting with Dana. And so I'm wondering if you can frame it so that if architects come, that the majority of the meeting will be on strategies, incentives, et cetera, et cetera. But set aside, say, 15 minutes to focus a little bit more on the cost, because that is an impediment. And that way they would, you know, the amount of time that would really be focused on the expense side of it will allow them to do brainstorming on other issues and then just focus a specific amount of time to just focus on the finances. I'm going to be talking to Dana, you know, a week or so before the meeting, I can certainly give her that kind of the broad outline of what we're talking about. Is somebody going to invite the architect specifically to this? I'm happy to if you want me to. I'm happy to invite Wynn and Bill and or Doug Levine. I am happy for them to come as long as they understand that the architectural, the cost piece will not be the primary focus. It will be a relatively short part. Kathy, are you okay with this idea? I'm totally okay. Yeah, because yes, one of the other issues, and it's something they can just comment on, they don't have to do presentations. But one of the questions was about pre-approved designs. Would that be a way of mitigating costs for people if the state had accepted pre or the town had accepted pre-approved designs that would, you know, basically fly through the permit process, if you will. And I don't know what their take on that would be. I assume they would have opinions. But in any case, it's those kind of things. It's like the property tax question, Rachel. We know that Salem has done this. So we want to know what other communities have done it and what, in fact, has Salem done and what are the policies it look like in writing. And I will get that. But Dana will know other towns if they've done it. Pat, Mike, you and I, we actually, when I talk to Dana, it may be good for us to do a three-way conversation in the prep for that meeting. But we can talk about that later on. If you'll remind me, this is going to be an in-person meeting? It is in-person. It will also be zoom capabilities, but I am really hoping that all of our committee, I mean, it will be a much more dynamic interchange. We have a guest coming. I really want people to be there as much as possible in the flesh. I think it'll make a difference. I think it'll be more productive. I want Dana to see us and, you know, hear from our committee directly. It's a better interaction. Will it be at the COA? I'm not sure where it will be yet, but I'll get that information. But Jim, Doug Sacra has already attended some of these meetings, and he's an architect. And so if you're going to invite Bill and Wynn, I think Doug needs to be on that list. If somebody has his email address, please forward it to me. Okay. That'd be great. And is this going to be a longer meeting than usual? Is it going to be an hour? Are we going to- I think it's scheduled 7 to 8.30. 7 to 8.30. Great. And I, other than Mary convening the meeting, I think this will be the only topic of conversation. Great. At the meeting. Great. I'm excited. And I want to thank all of you for all your work on this. Well, other things that you want to talk about? I don't want to cut your short. We've done that already. I mean, the planning board did that already, so you have as much time as you want. I feel like, you know, I think we're on the same page that more than an hour is going to be devoted to hearing about the options we've come up with, the ideas we've come up with here from Dana, what she knows, whether it's about Salem or other communities that are about the Section 8 issue that Jean just mentioned. You know, we will have an outline of the various policy proposals, and we will perhaps end with a conversation about the cost possibilities from the architects. The architects. But again, I just want to underscore that in inviting them. I hope they don't feel like they are the centerpiece of the conversation. It can it can go. It can go the direction very easily. Yeah, but that's not what this brainstorming is supposed to be about. So we're just repeating myself again. I appreciate it. Thank you for arranging this and for for mentoring a brilliant woman who's now in a position of power is one of my many star students. I have to admit she's one of the stars, but I've got quite a number who I am very, very proud of. Well, that's great. I think that speaks well for the professor. Absolutely. No question. If you do it for 38 years, some of them come out as stars, right? Just anyway, Kathy, anything more to say on this? No, no, I think it's great. We're all on the same page. So our next meeting is February 4th at seven o'clock. We'll find out where exactly. Jim is going to contact some of these people if you have other people that you think can contribute, including people from other communities. Rachel? I just don't know the other town's housing people at all. Yeah, I honestly think this point, you know, especially after what happened the last meeting, I think if we keep control of this agenda more, we'll get more out of it and we'll learn more ourselves. And we really think we know we have a lot of questions and I think we already have a number of policy ideas and we want more information and we want to hear from Dane. I think you're right, Kathy. I think you're right. Well, we have two experts who are going to control the meeting. So, yeah. Okay. Homegrown experts, that's the best kind. I mean, we have Jean, who's the supportive housing expert, and we have Rachel and Kathy on ADU. This is great. Yeah. Yeah. I'll put it on my resume, Jim. I don't think you need to, Rachel. I think there's no more need for... Padding my resume. Yeah. You know, I had to put out a resume recently and I realized, you know, I haven't done it in five years. And there must be a reason why I stopped adding to it. Well, resumes turn out to be very, very useful when you're an academic, because if you want to know when you went to some meeting in some country that you cannot remember, your resume, my resume, tells me when I was in Greece, when I was in Australia, when I was in China, when I was who knows where. And the resume has it all. I mean, it's like, I don't have to remember anything. It's like a travel log. It is. It is. It's wonderful. Anyway, Mary, I think I interrupted you. You were going... Are you waiting for somebody to propose that we adjourn? Well, I'm assuming... I'm just making sure that we're ready to adjourn. My sense is we are, but I don't... Can I ask one question before we go? Jim, I know, went to that meeting with the planning board relative to the proposed amendment. Yeah. And maybe, Jean, you did too. I'm just curious as to whether there was any pushback. No, Jean had another meeting. It was just Janelle and me. And I was online. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. You're right. I was on Zoom. And I did make a comment. Thank you. So how much... How much... Yeah. Did you have concerns, basically, on what they were proposing? Were there... Was there a conversation or not? Well, they presented it in a very dry manner, I must say. I was only half listening, I admit. It was... You know, it didn't have a lot of passion. They're doing their job. And there will be a revised plan for the warrant. But their goal was basically to increase the square footage, allow it by permit. Yeah, because the first time around, we couldn't increase it because we wanted to get the two-thirds vote. Now we don't need the two-thirds vote so we can add to the basic footprint that was established initially. And that makes sense. I don't disagree with that. And they did talk at the meeting about adding additional language about affordable ADUs. So they seem to want affordable ADUs. They're amenable to the concept. And I think it's going to be up to us to show them how exciting and how creative we can be in terms of making suggestions and coming up with options. They're amenable to more than 900 square feet under, you know, if the circumstances warrant, they just didn't want to be held to that by right. In the overall sense. They thought it was prudent to just do it by special permit on a case-by-case basis. And that's kind of my summation of it. Okay. And that was their target issue as opposed to? That was the primary one. That was the primary issue. Whether it should be increased, you know, increased by right or kept at 900 square feet and increased only by special permit. And they were inclined toward the latter, which honestly I think is fine. I think it's not a bad solution for them. Yeah. And Jim, the reason for all the replacement language was basically for supposedly cleaning up the code. Yeah. And because the original one, we needed to get a two thirds vote. So it was deliberately very narrow and just what the state had allowed. And now the thought is we can be more creative and add to it based on the needs of Wayland. So I think that, you know, one option is more than 900 square feet. One option is, you know, additional affordability features and, you know, somebody like Wynn Mallet with some prefab ideas or things like that might be able to come up with other options that we really haven't thought of. But I think they're open now to adding to it. It's not going to happen this round because it's got to be submitted. Tomorrow. Yeah. But but I think the point is, let's keep building on it incrementally. I just didn't know whether there was in this. I'm just going to the weeds too much. But there was one provision where they talked about no property zone for only single family residences may contain more than the primary dwelling and two accessory dwellings. Anyway, my point was, they were dropping the language from the state law in the single family district, which was anywhere where a single family home is identified, is located. It's a broader definition. And I didn't know whether this was deliberate or whether it was just that type of thing. I don't think it was deliberate. Yeah, I don't think it was deliberate. Okay, the kind of thing that I can fix later in terms of just a fixed technical change then. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Jean had her hand up. Oh, I think I'll forego further discussion in the interest of everybody being able to go read a good book. I was going to go do some knitting, but thank you. I move that we adjourn. Is there a second? Second. All right. Roll call vote. Jim. Yes. Jackie. Yes. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Kathy. Yes. Kathy, Jackie, Jean, and Rachel and Mary. Yes. Okay. So we are adjourned at 813. Thank you all and stay safe. Jean, I look forward to seeing your draft and I will send out the emails. And if somebody will send me Doug's email address, I'd appreciate it. Okay. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. Nice to see you, Rachel. Nice to be seen.