[Town Meeting] Article 11 Substitute Motion

[Lee Ellis]

Here is the current wording of the substitute motion on Article 11.
There have been two small changes from the wording in the ARB original
report. "Special needs/elderly" has been changed to "special needs"
based on a comment that elderly by itself didn't seem to connote
specialized units. The other change was "highly specialized" was
changed to specialized. It seemed that the language "specialized units
... that are in the interest of the Town and clearly of advantage to
the prospective occupants" provided protection against attempts to
used this as a back door to providing affordable housing. Other than
Symmes it hard to see any recent project in Arlington that has
multiple components where this bylaw would apply, but the situation at
Symmes has shown the need for some flexibility with complex
multi-component projects.

As it would apply to Symmes allowing specialized units to be part of
the mix of affordable units at the Symmes development will bring back
the subsidies (around $2 million) that were in the original SRA
proposal. The developer has sent a letter of interest to the ARB that
offers to reduce the total number of units, increase the total number
of affordable units (also increasing the homeowner units from the
original proposal) and post a performance bond of something like $1.5
million on the renovation of the nurse's building. Since the LDA
returns the building to the town if SRA can't market it. The town
would get a renovated medical building or the building and what's left
of the $1.5 million.

As a TMM for the Symmes neighborhood, I feel a little funny talking
about what the developer is proposing, but as people will remember
from previous TMs, I'm am not shy about speaking out against the
interests of developer. In this case I feel the interest of the
neighbors, the town and developer overlap.

I hope to have more documentation to provide tomorrow, for now here's
the substitute motion.

Lee Ellis  TMM pct. 15

Substitute Motion

ARTICLE 11			ZONING BYLAW AMENDMENT/INCLUSIONARY ZONING

That the Town votes to amend the Zoning Bylaws, Article 11, Section
11.08,d,3(c) – by inserting immediately thereafter a subsection as
follows, "i.    If and only if specialized affordable units are to be
provided by the development, such as special needs units, then these
could remain clustered together rather than be distributed throughout
the development if there is a finding by the ARB that such grouping is
in the best interest of the Town and is clearly of advantage to the
prospective occupants."

Submitted by:

Lee Ellis
Town Meeting Member Pct. 15