2009-11-02 Community Planning and Development Commission Minutes

Home Browse Search

CPDC Minutes of 11/2/2009 Public Hearing: Bylaw Amendment - Downtown SmartGrowth (40R) District The Chair opened the public hearing. DT read the public notice. The Chair.explained the purpose of the public hearing was to discuss the proposed Downtown SmartGrowth District bylaw and zoning map change. The Board must vote to recommend or not recommend these amendments to Town Meeting. He noted the Board had received a number of emails and letters on the amendments. Selectman Ben Tafoya made a brief presentation on the 40R district as a tool to help Reading create a more vibrant downtown by allowing residential units above retail. Current zoning either does not allow this or is not being used because of other restrictions. The work on the 40R began some 16 months ago and now there is a bylaw including design guidelines ready for Town Meeting. To date, there are two developers interested in this zoning for project at the Atlantic Supermarket site and the M.F. Charles building. The Town Planner presented a slideshow to help explain the SmartGrowth bylaw and why it is right for Reading. ➢ Current plusses and minuses of the downtown: • Plusses: New businesses (Ristorante Pavarotti, Be Gifted, Butcher Shoppe); streetscape improvement project; alleyway project; adopt-an-island; butcher-shop mural; first Fall Street Faire. • Minuses: Housing not allowed by-right; vacant properties; no anchor; lack of foot-traffic ➢ Why SmartGrowth? • Allow housing by-right. Promote housing diversity. Symbiotic relationship with retail. • Design guidelines/standards: the town sets the standards of new development. Examples: no franchise architecture; taller building must step-back from streetline at certain heights. • Preserve open-space by increasing density downtown which is set up to handle it. • Financial incentives ➢ History of SmartGrowth. • Adopted by State in 2004. Brockton and Haverhill also have created 40R downtown districts. ➢ Timeline. • Tonight's public hearing is in advance of the upcoming 11/30 Special Town Meeting. If Town Meeting approves the Downtown SmartGrowth District, the town would receive final approval from the State early in 2010. ➢ Issues and Concerns • Building height would be the same or lower than the 45 feet existing zoning allows and if the structure is residential only it can be no higher than 33 feet. • Front setbacks would be zero feet the same as current zoning. • Building frontage would have a maximum of 300 feet. Atlantic Supermarket's frontage was approx. 250 feet. • All retail parking in the district would fall under existing zoning's within-300-feet-of-a- public-parking-facility off-street parking exemption (Section 6.1.1.1) • Encourage use of shared parking and creation of walkable downtown (park once and walk to all destinations). Page 2 of 8