MINUTES FOR ZRC – Dec.2, 2009
ATTENDING: Wayne, Danielle, Peter, Dillon, Adin, Dennis, Jim, Joel, Tom, John
1. Next meeting Dec. 16th, 5:30-7:30, Wayne’s office
2. Announcements:
Jan. meetings will return to 7:00 start time – the 6th and 20th. Place to be announced.
Housing Partnership meeting with Housing sub-committee at 5:30 at
Thursday, Dec. 10th Joint meeting of watershed zoning and planning board ordinance committee – Council Chambers.
3. Wayne proposed “possible focus areas” for on-going ZRC work:
Possible Focus Areas for Zoning Revisions Committee
1. Low hanging fruit with significant benefits for Sustainable Northampton
a. Remove unnecessary dimensional requirements business districts (especially HB)
b. Expand Central Business and Central Business Architecture significantly (possibly King Street, Pleasant Street, Market Street, Hawley Street, Conz Street, New South Street, Gothic Street, Service Center)
c. Remove unnecessary special permit requirements in Central Business and Highway Business.
d. Codification of West Street design standards from Smith College development agreement
e. Change single Family house dimensions in URA, URB, URC 5,000 square feet minimum lot size and 50’ frontage.
f. Create uniform and less stringent 10’ front and side setbacks for all uses in the residential districts.
g. Maximum Heights increased in HB to 55. Eliminate other dimensional requirements in HB. (setbacks, frontage)
h. Eliminate parking requirements in CB and HB.
2. Low hanging fruit with some benefits and little costs
a. Chickens
3. Medium term
a. Framework for form based code areas and approach
b. Framework for design review areas and approach
c. Significant other rezonings (URA, GB expansions, URB to URC, etc)
d. Remove some density requirements for residential units in URA, URB, and URC, with goal of allowing density in keeping with neighborhood. (This would allow the removal of Dimensional Averaging which is a Band-Aid in place until this is done.) This might require some design standards.
e. Expand commercial areas in Florence (Florence Pine Street NB to GB and expand to include Florence Community Center AND portions of Maple Street to GB)
f. Revise cluster standards (total rewrite and include solar access)
g. Other map changes
4. Long term
a. Implement design standards or form based code
b. Significant rewrite of zoning to be more graphic and user friendly (as part or separate from form-based code)
Note: The Planning Board may continue to work on the punch list included in the appendix to Sustainable Northampton and will consult with the ZRC as they move forward.
Joel comment on form-based code – thinking about issues of use and dimensions could be part of form-based code. There’s low-hanging fruit for a form-based code vs.”heavy duty” form based code for entire city.
5. Dillon proposes TIMELINE for our work.
(See attachment at bottom of this page)
Consensus for adopting Dillon’s timeline!
5. Next meeting will focus on ZRC’s 1ST PUBLIC MEETING.
Tentative date Feb. 10th. Will discuss aspects at next meeting.
6. Dennis brought proposal about looking at King St. development.
As follow-up to our King Street discussion at the last ZRC meeting, we talked about a King Street role at the Chamber’s Economic Development Committee meeting. Below is what we are proposing:
The Economic Development Committee of the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce proposes to contribute to a much-needed public discussion of the future of King Street and its zoning by initiating the following:
1. We will compile and analyze all available feasibility studies that estimate future demand for residential and commercial development in Northampton, including King Street.
2. We will convene, hopefully in conjunction with the Zoning Revisions Committee, a meeting of King Street property owners and their representatives, City representatives, and knowledgeable realtors, to review the ownership of parcels available for development, and to review proposals that have been considered to date.
3. Also, hopefully in conjunction with the Zoning Revisions Committee, we will invite representatives of Berkshire Development to walk us through their analysis of the “Old Honda” site, offering their view of why the numbers ultimately didn’t work for them, and what role King Street zoning played in their decision to not proceed.
4. We will also investigate other possible approaches to the zoning of King Street, to be passed on for the consideration of the Zoning Revisions Committee.
Dennis proposes session of Economic Development Committee of Chamber Tues., Dec. 15th at noon at Chamber of Commerce and will include by invitation:
3-4 members of economic development committee of Chamber of Commerce
3-4 members of ZRC who are interested and available
several property owners
realtor
banker
OPD members
One possible task of this meeting would be to discuss whether, when and how to involve public.
Committee endorses meeting.
7. Sub-committee reports:
Energy – has ideas to recommend and wants to connect to other committees, i.e. housing, subdivisions, clusters. Carolyn wants to work with group to write up recommendations. Joel proposed bringing recommendations to next meeting and we’ll decide when to put on agenda.
Agriculture – stake-holder meeting with urban chicken advocates. Presented summary of public process for getting ordinance passed and draft framework to help understand all of the issues – noise, setbacks, nuisance, waste, stormwater, number of chickens. Group will get together and look through framework on own and hash out details and Wayne and Carolyn would then try to write it up. Wrote follow-up e-mail asking the group to invite ZRC ag subcommittee to subsequent meeting and then give to Wayne and Carolyn. Also have recommendations related to agriculture that relate to sustainability plan and will bring to agricultural commission. Would necessitate adding agricultural recommendations to sustainability plan, which would then require zoning changes.
Housing – will be meeting with HOUSING PARTNERSHIP on Dec. 7th.
Cluster – will be written by Joel and will now include solar access. Also need to discuss whether and how to talk about cluster zoning change at public meeting in Feb.
(Joel described current zoning and proposed changes in preparation for his writing of the new zoning, but will not proceed with writing until decisions are made about how to go forward)
